


Devil's Resting Place

by Khirsah



Series: A Dragon Age Fairy Tale [3]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Dragon Age Fairy Tale, Fade Sex, M/M, Sleeping Beauty Elements, The Fade
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-27
Updated: 2017-09-30
Packaged: 2018-04-11 15:27:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 21,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4441211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Khirsah/pseuds/Khirsah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Fenris walked away from a life with Hawke, he thought he'd put it all behind him. But when a freak accident in the Fade threatens to steal Hawke away from him forever, he finds that some things are worth fighting for.</p><p><b>OR:</b> A Dragon Age Fairy Tale, Sleeping Beauty style</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Hawke

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Silkycat](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Silkycat).



> This is for my lovely patron and all-around amazing person, Silkycat. Thank you. <333

“You know,” Isabela drawled from the doorway, “if you’ve actually taken to reading that blighted manifesto, I’m well within my rights as your best friend to set you on fire.”

Ian looked up with a start, one hand automatically jerking to cover the page before he could think better of it. Sure enough, the moment it looked like he had something to hide, Isabela straightened with real curiosity on her face. Damn and blast; time for damage control.

“ _Varric_ is my best friend,” he pointed out, turning away from his desk as if he wasn’t desperate to hide its contents from view. “He is my unofficial biographer, after all.”

“ _I_ can be your unofficial biographer.” She sauntered away from the doorway—toward the big four-poster bed and not the desk, because Isabela was a terrible person who liked to toy with her friends. And her enemies. And, really, pretty much just _everyone_. Because of that whole being a _terrible person_ thing.

She tapped a finger against her pursed lips as if deep in thought. “Let’s see…Ian Hawke was born on a dreadfully boring farm in the middle of absolutely nowhere, Ferelden. There he was half-raised by a pack of mabari,” Trouble lifted his head from his paws and gave an approving huff at that, “and grew freakishly large by swilling bad ale and lifting fully grown sheep over his head to the amazement of all at every backwards county fair.”

“…I’m not _freakishly_ large,” Ian muttered, shifting in his seat; it protested as if on cue under his bulk.

But she wasn’t finished, because of course he couldn’t have it that easy. “He made all the little farmboys swoon,” unfortunately untrue, “was the hero of some silly war no one cares about,” an outright misrepresentation, “and finally got fed up with the beaucolic life and decided to move to the most interesting city he could find. How am I doing?” Isabela tipped her head toward him, one hand rested on a deliberately—and provocatively—cocked hip. “Am I hired?”

Ian snorted. “Sorry, but no. Varric usually tosses in more explosions.”

“Varric always did have a nose for drama. Speaking of drama…”

 _And here we go_ , Ian thought, bracing himself for whatever was next. Usually this was the point in Wicked Grace when Isabela threw down her cards with a cackle and stole the entire pot. 

“You’re doing a fair job of hiding it, but I’ve been watching you for years now.” Isabela tapped the length of her nose with a broad wink. “I know your tells, Farmboy, and you’re going to hurt yourself twisting around trying to pretend like you’re not shielding that from me.” 

He pressed a broad ( _freakishly_ broad, Isabela might have said, nearly big enough to span an entire page) palm over the open book, face twisting up. Maker, he loved his friends like the mad little family they had become, but sometimes he _really_ questioned his habit of adopting every stray pirate or rogue or lost Dalish that wandered into his path. There was no keeping secrets from the likes of them. “Can we bargain?” he mused. “Is there room in this for desperate bargaining?”

“We both know how this is going to end, Hawke—you may as well save us both the dance and hand it over.”

She was right, of course. He was big, and he was strong, and in a straight contest of might, he’d likely win. But there was no beating Isabela for speed, reflexes, or pure mulish determination to never take _no_ for an answer. Ian sighed and rubbed at his face with the meat of his palms. He should have locked the bloody door. Bolted the windows. Blown out all the candles and crawled under the bed and…

And now he was just being a mudbrain.

“Can’t we just pretend we respect my privacy this once?” Ian mused even as he picked up the loose-bound book, closing it over a thumb and holding it out for Isabela.

She bounded forward with a crooked grin, snagging the book with one hand and bracing herself against his chest with the other. She leaned in, dark hair swinging about his face, and left a smacking kiss between his brows. “Never going to happen, Hawke,” she said, cackling when he tried to wave her off when she leaned in again for a proper kiss.

“ _Back_ , demon,” Ian snorted, ducking and lifting his crossed arms, squirming away with a reluctant grin—then jerking up again with a sudden barking _laugh_ at the brush of dexterous fingertips along his sides. The chair groaned in protest, shuddering as he laughingly wriggled to escape. “Stop. _Stop!_ ” he begged between gasps. Batting her hands away did _nothing_ —she was too fast and he couldn’t, he, oh, oh Maker his sides _ached_ as he snorted with laughter even as Ian tried to draw up into a ball. It was madness: Trouble up and barking joyfully, bounding around them in a mad dash, stubby tail thumping. He licked at Ian’s face when Ian tried to twist away from Isabela’s stupidly clever fingers—and _that_ , of course, was the moment the chair gave a warning _crack_.

“Maker’s balls, Hawke!” Isabela skipped back to spare her toes, laughing even as he jumped to his feet barely in time to avoid spilling onto his ass…and then, _of course_ , nearly tripped face-first over his dog. He stumbled once, caught his balance—and froze there, arms akimbo, waiting out the ensuing chaos. 

Trouble wove between his legs, barking happily, laughing in that way only dogs could manage. For her part, Isabela leaned against the foot of the bed and cackled. “The Champion of Kirkwall, ladies and gentlemen!”

Ian looked up through the too-long fall of his hair and sighed. “I’d ask you to remind me why I let you stick around,” he said, slowly lowering his arms. “But I’m too afraid you’d actually answer.”

“ _Well_ ,” she purred, shimmying up onto his bed. “There’s the gorgeous ass, the sly wit, and ineffable charm, the _clever fingers_ …”

“Yeah,” Ian said, turning back to the chair. Its leg was cracked neatly in half. _Again._ Maybe he should have asked the Arishok for recommendations on reliable craftsmen before running him through with a sword. “Point perfectly illustrated; thank you Bela.”

“…a pussy as wet and hot as a Tevinter spring…”

He stumbled; Isabela laughed. “Aw, your ears are red!” she mock-cooed, and it was all he could do not to try to hide under his bed after all.

Seriously—next life? No pirates.

“Can we just,” Ian began, reluctantly laughing with her. It was better than the alternative, he supposed, padding over to the bed and crawling in next to his friend. _It_ was plenty big and plenty strong enough to hold him no matter how, ah, acrobatic he tried to be. At least, it had been the last time he’d used it for anything but fitful sleeping and horsing around with his dog. “Get on with the humiliation, thanks? Get it over with and maybe go _do_ something with today?”

She cooed and nudged his calf with her bare toes even as she curled against the broad expanse of his chest. Ian huffed a laugh and wrapped an arm around Isabela’s curvy waist, tugging her close. There were days—plenty of days—when he wished he was the type of man who could take her up on her open invitation to take their friendship somewhere new. It would be so _easy_. He already loved her beyond reason, and there was no denying that she was beautiful. Sexy, even. _He_ found her sexy.

But.

_But._

There would always be a _but_ , wouldn’t there? Because he hadn’t met her until a good few weeks after he’d fallen into a ridiculous one-sided infatuation with a gorgeous broody elf with more rage than sense and eyes that Ian could feel watching him whenever Fenris thought no one was paying attention.

Maker, if he had to suffer the lurching heartbreak of catching Fenris looking _away_ the moment he turned toward the soft feel of his gaze one more time, he’d… He’d… Well, he’d do _something_ more than moon and write morose journal entries about that one night they’d spent together, that was for sure.

“Oh, _Hawke_ ,” Isabela sighed as she paged through his journal, reading the latest example of just how pathetic he’d become. He closed his eyes to keep from seeing the fond pity in her expression, tipping his face toward her obediently when she tangled her fingers in his hair. She tugged him closer, lips ghosting lightly between his brows in a gesture that was almost maternal—before flicking his nose hard.

“ _Ow,_ ” Ian grumbled, though he didn’t turn his face away. He deserved it.

“You deserve it,” Isabela echoed. “Hawke. You need to stop doing this to yourself.”

He shrugged a big shoulder and burrowed down to press his face against the pirate’s shoulder. She smelled like the Hanged Man and musk and, somehow even now, the sea. He tightened his grip around her waist as he filled his lungs with the familiar scent of her, holding tight as she closed the journal and tossed it toward the desk.

It landed somewhere short, hitting the floorboards with a solid _thump_. Trouble snorted a breath that sounded suspiciously like a _good riddance._

Maker. Even his dog was judging him.

“Hawke,” Isabela began, threading her fingers tighter through his dark hair. “Far be it for me to be the serious one, but you really need to stop this. I’m not going to insult either of you by saying he isn’t worth it—”

“Good.” He actually bristled at the idea, opening his eyes and rising up onto one elbow.

“— _but_ all you’re doing with your endless lovelorn moping is making yourself miserable. He’s not going to change his mind just because you write endearingly earnest journal entries about how stupid you are for him. So.” She twisted around, flinging one shapely, bare thigh over his waist and moving in a sinuous flow to straddle him; a black eyebrow arched. “Stop being a pathetic sadsack, man up, and get over him already. Here, I’ll help.” She gave an exaggerated wriggle, brows now dancing in a playful leer. “Remember, Hawke: pussy as wet and hot as a Tevinter spring.”

Ian pulled a face. “Not. Helping. Bela.”

But really, he had to admit to himself as he snagged her around the waist and rolled her back down onto the wide mattress, she _was_ helping. The snorting laugh, the way she beat at his chest…even the too-obvious way she rocked her hips up as if someday his stupid bits would get with the program and stop mooning over unobtainable elves…all of it made him grin in spite of himself.

She was messy and she was crass and she made him blush and laugh in equal measure: he supposed that made Isabela as close to a best friend as anything.

(Well. Tied with Varric, who really _did_ put a gratifying number of explosions in his unofficial biography.)

“Are we done mocking me now?” he asked, looking down at her.

Isabela just _grinned_ , which immediately had his guard up—though not fast enough. Before he could so much as blink, she was kicking out, knocking his knee out from under him and sending him crashing gracelessly to the mattress. At the same moment (because she was nothing if not fast) she was wriggling free _and_ dragging her fingers lightly up his sides, earning an unselfconscious _shout_ of laughter.

“Aw,” she cooed, wriggling away. “Does that tickle?”

“Hate. You.” He managed to snag her ankle before she could make her escape, _yanking_ Isabela back onto the bed. He swung his big body around in a desperate bid to pin the pirate—but she was quick, and too agile, worming away with the grace of an eel the moment he thought he had her. Another brush of her clever fingers had him stuttering out a breathless cackle, squirming away even as he tried to catch her wrists. “ _Imp_.”

“Oooh, Hawke, _harder_.”

Trouble barked and vaulted up onto the bed to join in the fun, nubby tail wildly wagging, heavy paws everywhere. Woman, dog, and hopelessly tangled bedsheets were a blur of color and sensation, and before he knew it, Hawke had been flipped around beneath a flailing mess of limbs and fur, panting and snickering as Isabela perched on his stomach and Trouble flopped dangerously close to his head.

Isabela reached up and pinched his nipples—hard. “Do you yield, Farmboy?”

Ian pretended to consider, then yelped when she twisted. “Hey, hey, those are _attached_ you know! Fine—I yield.” He flopped back dramatically, then snorted and turned his face when Trouble licked a swipe up his cheek. “I _yield_. That means you win, you know. You can stop tormenting me.”

“But Hawke,” Isabela purred, swinging a bare thigh and sliding off him (and the bed). “Tormenting you is too much fun. Now if you’re done making out with your dog…”

He pushed Trouble away with an affectionate grumble, rubbing at his beard even as he crawled out of bed after her.

“…why don’t we go see what mischief we can manage? I’m _bored_. There’s got to be something interesting going on in the city.”

In other words: there had to be trouble they could land themselves in the middle of. But the thing was, Isabela was right. There was always something going on in Kirkwall, especially now that tensions were so high between the mages and the Templars. 

_That_ thought was enough to have his stomach tightening into a fist again, but Ian took a deep breath and forced himself to think past that low-level worry constantly dogging his heels even as he started reflexively pulling on his armor.

“I’m sure there’s someone who needs help somewhere,” he mused. “We can gather a team and go see what’s going on.”

She cast him an almost-sweet smile over her shoulder, then sauntered over to the chest where he kept all his treasures from home. He used to keep it locked before realizing that with friends like Isabela and Varric, a locked chest was as close as you could get to an open invitation to snoop. Now he just left it accessible to anyone who wanted to rifle around in his memories. Why not? It wasn’t as if there was anything in there worth stealing. A tiny blanket worn thin from age with the initials IH, BH, and CH embroidered along three of the four corners. An old wooden sword barely the length of his forearm. A cloak Carver had worn when they’d trekked out together to join the army. The broken end of Bethany’s last staff. A lock of his mother’s hair.

All the useless detritus of a life that some days felt so very far away, steeped in loss and memory.

He tugged hard at the buckle to his breastplate, ignoring Trouble’s low whine. There was a jagged edge of glass in there too, from one of those bottles of wine Fenris had smashed into the fireplace. Like a lovesick fool, he’d come back hours later to check on the elf (then barely even a friend, much less a lover) and, spotting the blue flash of light catching the dying sun, had crouched to sift through the ashes. The glass was years older now, edges worn smooth by the press of his fingers, but it was no less brilliant a blue for all that.

“Go ahead and toss the journal in,” Ian said, tugging on his gauntlets. “I don’t need to see it.”

“Good man,” Isabela said. She held out a hand and Trouble helpfully nosed it close; Ian didn’t let himself notice the spiteful toothmarks left in the supple leather. “Who should we drag into the fun tonight?”

He kept his gaze riveted to the many buckles lining the inside of his wrists and forearms. “Well,” Ian said slowly, “since we’re already in the neighborhood, we may as well see if Fenris is interested.”

Isabela dropped the journal none-too-gently into his pile of treasures and slammed the chest closed _hard_. He flinched, but kept on, dogged. “And I promised Merrill I’d drop by soon.”

“I am _not_ willing to spend the day watching you give Fenris big brown cow eyes.”

“They are not—! I will not—!” He had to fight the impulse to cover his eyes, flushing. “I’m not going to do anything of the sort. It’s just…tactics.”

She shot him a look as she rose fluidly to her feet. “Tactics.” Isabela’s voice was utterly flat.

“Yes,” Ian protested. “Tactics. Party balance. Ugh, division of strengths and… Look, Aveline talks about it all the time. I know because she _still_ rags on me for taking Merill, Anders, and Bethy on a Tal-Vashoth raid that one time.”

“That _was_ monumentally stupid,” Isabela agreed thoughtfully.

He cleared his throat. “Yes, well. There was maybe a learning curve when I first got to Kirkwall. But my point is, two stabby guys, a mage, and a pirate: party balance. Because sometimes it takes me a while, but I do eventually catch on.”

She tilted her head, eyes locked on his face. It went on long enough—Isabela’s expression thoughtful, her gaze tracking over his features as if she could read all his thoughts, plumb down to the depths of his old pains, his many heartbreaks, his endless loss—that his muscles began to go tight as a closing fist.

Ian didn’t used to hate how easy it was to read him. Back when he was just Malcolm Hawke’s son, the too-tall, too-muscular yokel who snuck out to read embarrassing books when he was supposed to be laboring over his family’s farm, it didn’t matter that his emotions flickered so close to the surface.

Now, after losing father, losing Carver, losing Bethany, losing Mother…losing _Fenris_ in some bitter twist he still didn’t understand…he’d give anything to be able to shutter up and wear a false smile like a new set of armor.

He didn’t; he couldn’t. He seemed fated to always wear his heart on his sleeve—and he did not doubt Isabela could read the lingering traces of melancholy in his expression as easily as she’d skimmed the pages of his diary.

But at least she was friend enough to pretend she couldn’t.

“All right, Farmboy,” she said, gesturing for Ian to grab his sword. “Let’s go see if Fenris feels like company.”

That shouldn’t have felt like such a triumph; he shouldn’t have wanted to desperately to see the man who’d been so insistent about walking away from what they’d…sort of…had. But Ian Hawke had long since given up on _logic_ when his heart was concerned, so he simply grinned back and grabbed for his sword, strapping the monstrous thing to his back with practiced ease.

“Come on, then, Trouble,” he said, patting his thigh. Trouble just huffed a breath and flopped to the ground, watching him with a frankly disapproving gaze. _I know why you really want to invite Fenris along_ , that steady look seemed to say, _and I won’t have anything to do with it._ “Or doooon’t,” Ian finished on a drawl.

Isabela snorted and thrust an elbow into his side. “I love it when your dog judges you,” she said, easily dancing away from his half-hearted return jab. “He does it so well.”

“Yeah, well,” Ian muttered, casting Trouble one last look before trudging after his friend toward the door. Toward _Fenris_. “I guess he’s had enough experience by now.”

Depressing as that thought may be.


	2. Fenris

Fenris was sitting in the dark, brooding. Not that he would admit as much if pressed.

Twilight steadily gathered outside his boarded-up windows, cracks revealing the first glimpse of starlight high above the city. A soft wind blew, whistling across the fireplace flue. There were still coals in the hearth, flickering orange-red across charred logs like a tracery of lyrium veins; if he let himself focus on that, he was sure he’d feel his own markings charge in response.

He didn’t let himself focus on that. He had gotten very, very good over the last few months at not thinking about uncomfortable things.

A half-full bottle rested by his feet. His sword was propped by the door, ready. Waiting. _Venhedis_ , he was always _ready and waiting_ on the off-chance Hawke stepped through the door wanting his aid. What a good dog he was.

Fenris held the well-worn scrap of red cloth between careful fingers, rubbing his thumb back and forth, back and forth across the nubby material as he stared—broodily—into middle distance. He tried to work up indignation at his own thoughts, but his heart gave a pitiful twist at the mere _idea_ of Hawke, and in the end he had to lock off that train of thought as well. It felt like patching a thousand cracks in an overflowing dam one sliver at a time. Eventually, he knew, _knew_ , that he wouldn’t be able to keep the whole thing from buckling under the strain. One day, Hawke would glance his way with those sad eyes, or he’d reach out for Fenris in the heat of battle, or—Maker take him—even worse, he’d finally come to his senses and _turn away_ for good, leaving Fenris for the promise of someone who could return all the messy, beautiful, complicated feelings Hawke was so damnably good at.

He’d find someone else and Fenris would be alone for good. And what kind of a monster was he that the mere idea of Hawke finding comfort with anyone else made his hands tighten into fists?

Downstairs, there was a light knock, followed by the sound of the door scraping across stone. Fenris tilted his head, listening for the heavy tread of Hawke’s feet and the tell-tale clank of armor. He quickly wrapped the cloth around his wrist and tied it off, standing and snagging the neck of the bottle in one easy movement. It wouldn’t do to be caught looking too eager to follow whenever Hawke beckoned, even (especially?) if it was true.

Isabela was first through his doors. Of course. “Ho there, Fenris,” she said, crossing the room in a glide. “Is that for me?”

“Isabela,” he said. He let her take the bottle, gaze already tracking back toward the door. He could hear Hawke coming up the steps, slower and more deliberate than Isabela; his heart gave an unsteady lurch. “What do you want?”

She just tutted. “You know you’re happy to see us,” she said, hooking an arm through his and tossing him a wink when he hissed and pulled back. Isabela wagged the bottle at him. “Or, at least, you’re happy to see _one_ of us. All dolled up and waiting.”

He scowled and crossed his arms. Was it truly that obvious? Isabela just snorted, reaching out to tug at the trailing end of the favor tied about his wrist, then laughing and darting away when he slapped at her. “ _Stop_.”

“See, look at that,” she cooed at his furious growl. “So very, very happy.”

“Who’s happy?” Hawke asked from the doorway.

Fenris jerked his chin down against the sudden rush of heat, long sweep of silver hair falling across his eyes. “Only this drunken fool,” he snapped, refusing to give into the temptation to turn immediately toward Hawke. But if he cut his gaze to the side, he could just make out the endearingly huge outline of him, filling the door like a giant from a fairy story.

It was funny, Fenris couldn’t help but muse. The day they’d met, long, long ago, Hawke’s size had been off-putting. Intimidating—if he were the sort to allow himself to be intimidated. Hawke stood head and shoulders over even the tallest of them, and that plus his…impressive physique…was enough to make him look Qunari if it weren’t for the lack of horns.

Big and broad and muscular and, yes, fine, _intimidating_ , even to him.

Until you looked into his warm, earnest eyes. Until you caught the sudden, crooked gleam of his smile. Until you saw those fucking _dimples_ and heard his laugh and witnessed the way he melted around children and small animals and the elderly and _pretty much anyone_ with a sob story to share.

Until you realized that massive or not, built like a warrior from legend or not, Ian Hawke was nothing but a sweet-tempered ox of a man from the backwoods of Ferelden who’d had the bad luck of falling in love with the one fool in Thedas stupid enough to deny him.

Hands clenching in impotent fists, Fenris turned his back on Hawke and stared doggedly out the window, ignoring Isabela’s soft sigh. “What do you want?” he demanded, more harshly than he intended.

Hawke hesitated, then slowly stepped into the room. “We can go,” he murmured—in his _gentle_ voice, damn him. “If now isn’t a good time.”

“Now is a fine time,” Isabela answered before Fenris could. “He’s just being cranky because I stole the last of his good red. Which, mmm, this really is quite good; thank you for being too slow to snatch it back, Fen.”

He shot her a glare over his shoulder, secretly grateful for the way the pirate so effortlessly deflected tension. “You are impossible,” he said.

“Impossibly wonderful,” she retorted. “Right, Hawke?”

“Of course,” he said immediately, because he was just that sort of man. Then, to Fenris: “We were going to head down to the Coast, if you wanted to join us. No pressure, though. I was thinking of asking Merrill, too, so…”

So he would be damned if he’d let Hawke wander off into danger without a proper sword at his back. Pride kept him from saying as much, however. “I am not disinclined,” he said stiffly instead, finally turning to get a full look at the other man.

It was like a blow every time. Maker, but Ian Hawke was beautiful. He was smiling, too—one of Fenris’s favorite smiles, all earnest hope, with a hint of wickedness curling up the corners. _Heading down to the Coast_ was likely code for _finding as much trouble as possible_ , but he couldn’t help the tiny quirk of his own lips, growing slowly when Hawke began to beam. He never could seem to keep himself from responding.

“Good,” Hawke said. “Good, good that’s…good. All right. Well. Do you need anything, or are you just about ready to go?”

“ _Hawke said awkwardly_ ,” Isabela added under her breath, then suddenly laughed at Hawke and Fenris’s twin glares. “Oh, Varric was right—that _is_ fun!”

Hawke let out a huff of breath. “Maybe we can ditch the pirate along the way,” he mused, but the grin was back in full force when Isabela just swatted at him, her dark eyes rolling. The two of them were as thick as thieves—literally, sometimes. It was good to know there was someone who could tease Hawke into high spirits.

It was good to see Fenris hadn’t ruined _everything_.

And he was brooding again. He grabbed for his sword, using the motion to mask his expression. “I am ready,” he said. “Let us go to the alienage before that little fool wanders off and we’re forced to give chase across half the city.”

Isabela slung her arm through his. She’d finished the red, he noticed, the empty bottle swinging from her fingertips. When he arched his brows, she gave him her broadest wink. “Come on, then,” she said, giving a tug. The two of them headed toward the stairs of the ruined mansion, Hawke at their heels. “Let’s find adventure before I absolutely die of boredom.”

He chuffed a laugh, stepping over long-dead bodies, letting himself be coaxed out of his dark mood again, as always. When Fenris glanced over his shoulder, Hawke was looking at him, smiling; it was so ridiculously easy to smile back.

They made their way through Lowtown toward the alienage with Isabela filling in most of the silences. Fenris didn’t care; she didn’t expect more from him than the occasional grunt, which he was content enough to give. Hawke picked up the thread of her patter every now and again, but even he seemed happy to let her lapse into monologue. It gave Fenris a good opportunity to observe Hawke as they walked—to soak in the careful way he moved. Note the way the light hit his face. Be an utter love-sick fool, but there was no help for it, it seemed. Heading into the alienage, just a few steps and to the right of Hawke, Fenris could watch him without being seen and _remember_ the way it felt to have those hands on him. Those eyes warm with a shy kind of adoration. The hot gust of his breath…

He was so fixated on watching Hawke out of the corner of his eye that he almost missed the frightened elf until she was almost upon them.

“I was hoping you would come,” she murmured, stumbling to a stop in front of Hawke. Fenris instantly tensed, one hand snaking back for the hilt of his sword until he remembered her face. Ah, yes—this was the fool Dalish who’d sired a mage whelp with some merchant. Hawke had taken pity on the boy and had sent him to live with Keeper Marethari and her clan.

Good riddance.

Hawke stopped, turning at once to face her with an earnest expression. He was an easy mark for anyone with a sad story to tell, and there was nothing sadder than a women separated from her child. “Arianni,” he said. “Is everything all right?”

She gave a little shake of her head. “You did so much for my Feynriel already, but… I visited him among the People, but he turned me away. I know the demons still plague him. And now they’ve taken him! Two days ago, Feynriel went into a nightmare and hasn’t returned.”

Fenris fought the urge to bare his teeth. Of course the demons had taken the boy—what had they expected, sending a mage into the world instead of packing him off to the Circle where he belonged? But Hawke and _Anders_ would not listen to reason back then, and now they—and the entire Dalish clan who had taken the boy in, it seemed—were paying for it.

“He can’t be woken up?” Hawke said, lightly touching the woman’s elbow and leading her a short distance away from the elven merchants. Isabela murmured something about finding Merrill and disappeared; Fenris glared down at the cobblestones even as he shifted closer to Hawke and Arianni.

Just because he knew he would not approve of whatever mad scheme she pushed Hawke toward did not mean Fenris would abandon the man to see it done alone. He owed him that much. (He owed him everything.)

She took an unsteady breath. “The Keeper says he is near death. His lips still fog a mirror, but that is all.”

“Surely there are _mages_ who can pursue him in the Fade,” Fenris cut in. Both of them looked at him, but he just stared back levelly. Hawke was a warrior; what could she possibly expect him to do?

Arianni only hesitated a moment at Fenris’s outburst before continuing. “I have contacted Keeper Marethari. The Dalish have an ancient ritual that might help. But it requires someone Feynriel trusts to enter the Fade to free him.”

She could not possibly mean Hawke.

Hawke could not possibly _agree_.

“I have faced the Fade before,” Hawke— _damn_ him—said, as easily as if the woman had asked him to fetch her son home from the Hanged Man. “Perhaps I can aid him.”

Without a word, Fenris turned away, stalking toward the Vhenadahl. He had to; if he stayed close, if he watched Hawke’s earnest face as he promised to risk himself to save that woman’s son, he would snap. The great tree rose before him, a blur of color. Fenris squeezed his eyes shut to force down the comingled terror and fury rising bitter inside him.

A soft hand fell on his arm; when he drew in his next breath, he smelled good red wine and the sea. 

“Is he sleeping?” Merrill asked in a low voice, and Isabela squeezed his bicep before he could reach for his blade.

“No, kitten, but you might find yourself unconscious if you antagonize him right now. Come now, Fenris—what did I miss?”

Fenris waved her off, shaking free of her friendly grip even as he glanced back over his shoulder, where Hawke and Arianni were still talking in low voices. “Hawke is being a _fool_. He has agreed to enter the Fade to find that woman’s son—no doubt facing the very demons who have claimed him.”

Isabela quirked a smile. “Frolic through dreams?” she said, one hand resting on the exaggerated curve of her hip. “Sounds like an experience. I’m game.”

“It is _not_ a game!” Fenris snapped.

“Oh, no,” Merrill agreed with wide eyes. “Certainly not! Not as many rules in the Fade, for one, and hardly any fun at all at parties.”

Luckily for her, Arianni and Hawke were moving toward them, heads together—her hand was on his arm, as if he were some kind of grand chevalier. Ian Hawke: noble protector of the weak, the downtrodden, the poor and the forgotten. How very fucking _noble_ …until it saw him killed. “I’ve already called for the Keeper,” Arianni was saying. “We need to begin the ritual as quickly as possible. Would you like to stay here or return when she arrives?”

“This is too urgent to delay,” Hawke said, covering her hand with his.

The smile she gave him was bright with unshed tears. “You have been far kinder than I had any right to expect,” Arianni murmured.

Fenris opened his mouth to agree with her—there were far too many who were willing to take advantage of Hawke’s _kindness_ —but a sudden change in the square caught his attention before the barbed words could slip free. He wasn’t sure at first what had alerted him—whether it was the sudden hush, or the way everyone seemed to go utterly still, like rabbits sensing a fox. Or maybe it was large elven eyes turning almost as if by hidden signal pair by pair toward the steps leading up to Lowtown.

The Dalish Keeper stood just past the last turn into the alienage, her silver hair fluttering in the foul-scented breeze, her somber gaze moving silently across the desperate filth the city elves resigned themselves to. She started to move toward the Vhenadahl, ignoring the elves that _bowed_ in her wake, as if they owed anything to her.

As if she and her people had done anything but leave them to rot here, choosing their traditions over their brethren.

Fenris gripped his hands into fists, bitter fury transferring naturally from Arianni to Marethari. And why shouldn’t he hate her? She was a part of this farce, only she stood there letting the men and women who died in the gutter scrape and bow and fawn over her as if she were anything more than a charlatan peddling lies of times long past and wielding magic as if it were something that could be tamed.

At his side, Merrill sucked in a pained breath. Isabela sighed.

Then Marethari turned from the Vhenadahl and moved toward Arianni and Hawke, her eyes locking with the big warrior’s and never once straying. That, more than anything that came before, made the hairs on Fenris’s arms stand up in protest.

She stopped in front of Hawke and dipped her head. He inclined his in return. Then, not a single word spoken, the three turned toward Arianni’s modest hut.

Isabela moved first, hurrying to slip inside after them. Both Fenris and Merrill hesitated in the square, each for their own reasons.

Should he leave? He _would not_ enter the Fade, not even if Hawke pleaded for him to join this fool’s errand. But he couldn’t bear the thought of just abandoning him either. What if he needed a sword to watch over his sleeping form? What if a demon possessed the fool Merrill and she had to be stricken down? Maker alone knew Hawke wouldn’t be up to the task of taking a blade to her throat, but even though he had grown to tolerate her presence over the years, Fenris was more than capable of meeting her limpid green eyes and seeing her death there.

She must have read his thoughts with her blood magic; Merrill pouted. “You’re imagining me dead again, aren’t you?” she asked, as if it were some kind of game.

“Yes,” Fenris said. There was no point in _lying_.

“Well that isn’t very friendly, is it?” She cocked her head, then squinted at him for a long minute. Finally, Merrill shook her head. “Ah, no, I can’t do it. I’d rather imagine you covered in puppies.”

Fenris blinked. “Covered in—”

She smiled, wide and just a little too sharp. “A score of little, wriggling, happy mabari puppies. You’re at the hearth of a lovely fire, and Hawke is laughing and so very happy. And then he leans in and scoops up one of the puppies who has been gnawing with those adorable little needle teeth on your toes, and he _kisses_ you to make you smile. Hawke,” Merrill added, as if there had been any doubt. “Not the puppy.”

He had no idea what to say to that. He had no idea if he could even speak. The image was ridiculous, impossible, _achingly_ , stupidly wonderful. He could almost see Ian’s eyes going warm as he leaned in. He could feel Ian’s breath, the brush of his lips. He could feel the sunburst of _joy_ so pure and uncomplicated that he could do nothing but lean up into the caress and give himself over to it. To Ian.

But no. _No_. He’d walked away from _Hawke_ —dangerous to think of him as Ian; too intimate, too much like a lover—and any kind of future they may have had together.

And Merrill knew it.

“That was cruel,” Fenris said at last, when he could find the words. His heart was pounding too fast and his lungs felt three sizes too small. It felt, almost, like experiencing the loss of Hawke all over again.

Merrill just tipped her chin, gaze locked on his. Her fingers were curled so tight around the shaft of her staff that they bled ghostly white. “Well!” she said, something dark underlying the chirpiness of her tone. “You would know then, wouldn’t you?”

Then, without another glance, she turned on her heel and entered the small house, leaving Fenris to stare down at the broken cobbles in the heart of the alienage—heart aching, fear and worry and regret rattling through him like old bones in the breeze.

Too angry to follow Hawke down this latest rabbit hole, yet too frightened for him to turn back.


	3. Hawke

Ian knew he should be paying closer attention to the conversation between Marethari and Arianni, but he couldn’t seem to keep his gaze from drifting toward the hovel’s little door. Isabela was at his side, lounging against the wall with her arms crossed, but Merrill and Fenris had remained outside.

Talking.

No good ever, _ever_ came of those two talking. And with Fenris in the mood he always seemed to be in lately…

He wet his lips, shifting from foot to foot and wondering if he could ask the Keeper and the worried mother to just…pause for a moment. Not stop! Not even really delay in what was obviously a very critical mission. But just, well, give him a moment to pop his head out and make sure Merrill and Fenris weren’t painting the alienage streets in blood. Or worse.

It really did always seem like there could be an _or worse_ tacked on when it came to his friends.

“I did not wish to tell you by letter how grave your son’s situation is,” Marethari said.

Maybe if he just poked his head out, he’d be able to check on them and _still_ listen for any important details. Maybe no one would notice. Ian shifted his sizable bulk subtly toward the door; the floor creaked in protest. A few feet away, Isabela caught his eye, lips quirking into a lopsided smirk. _She_ obviously wasn’t worried. Of course, _she_ also found it funny when their friends went for each other’s’ throats—and didn’t have as much to lose if Fenris finally decided to leave Kirkwall for good—so Ian was reluctant to use her as any sort of weathervane.

He took another subtle sliding step; _creak_.

Another. _Creeaaak_.

“The magic he possesses makes him what the Tevinters call somniari, a dreamer. Dreamers have the power to control the Beyond—what humans call the Fade,” Marethari continued. Ian froze, flushing, when Arianni glanced toward him with wide, hopeful eyes. He felt like an ass for being so distracted, but things were just so…tense. Ever since that night he spent with Fenris, it was as if he were walking on eggshells, torn between hope and regret; hurting, and unable to turn away from the source of his pain. He just—

Fenris was so very good at walking away; it was as if Ian had to constantly reassure himself that he wasn’t gone for good. Maker. Like he was some sort of child still establishing object permanence. If Fenris wanted to leave…

He would deal with it. He would _learn_ how to deal with it. Something like this healed with time, right? He just needed to give it more time.

“Feynriel is the first in two ages to survive.”

The door opened, and Ian felt a sudden rush of relief as Merrill slipped inside with a quiet, “Sorry, sorry!” He could see a sliver of the Alienage behind her lithe form, sunlight filtering through the leaves of the Vhenadahl before she tugged the door shut behind her. The quiet latch of it seemed unaccountably loud to Ian, echoing like the dull thud of his heart.

Fenris was not coming.

No. No, of course Fenris was not coming. He was an idiot to think otherwise.

Ian wet his lips and forced himself to focus as the Keeper explained the history of the somniari, the extent of their powers, the grave danger Feynriel found himself in. His heart kept tripping unhappily in his chest, but he kept it off his face as he listened, determined to save Feynriel, see Marethari off to Sundermount again, then maybe coax Merrill and Isabela back to the estate where the three of them could get ridiculously drunk, hide under a pile of blankets, and pretend today had never happened.

Merrill, he figured, would need it. Standing by his side, she was tense as a coiled spring, looking anywhere but at her former Keeper.

“What exactly are we going to do here?” Ian finally interrupted. The tiny hut was starting to feel stifling, and he needed to act now. All this talk was just winding everyone up tighter and tighter.

Marethari turned her solemn eyes on him. “The elves of the Dales were experts in the somniari arts,” she said. “They could even help those with no power enter the Fade. I have done my best to recreate the ritual. We will use Feynriel’s childhood home as a focus to draw him back through the Veil. But we will need someone willing to brave the dangers beyond the Veil to find him.”

Well, that sounded as clear as mud. “Just send me into the Fade,” Ian suggested, suddenly, starkly glad that Fenris _wasn’t_ here. He could only imagine what his response to that would have been. “If you can get me there, I’ll bring him back safely.”

Arianni’s eyes shone. “I told you he was amazing!” she breathed. She reached out to clasp Ian’s hands, her own _tiny_ in his. “Thank you, Hawke,” she said. “Once again, I do not know what would have become of us without you.”

Ian shifted awkwardly. “It’s nothing,” he said. Then, quickly: “Not that Feynriel is nothing. Of course. I just meant… I just, yes, glad to help.”

Marethari stepped close, one hand falling to the other woman’s shoulder even as Isabela hid a laugh at his unending awkwardness in her fist. “Now, Arianni,” Marethari said, “please excuse us. We must prepare.”

Arianni looked over, brows lifted. “Oh, of course.” She gave Ian’s hands one last squeeze before moving around him—he had to shuffle back to make room, feeling too large and bullish for the tiny room—and opening the door. Ian caught sight of the alienage again: the rustling leaves, the dappled shadows across broken flagstones, and bit of sky above the jagged edges of the roof. And, unexpectedly, _Fenris_ still standing there, arms crossed over his chest and brows drawn down into a frown.

Their eyes met over Arianni’s shoulder, and Ian’s heart gave a pathetic lurch. _He didn’t leave_ , he thought. Fenris straightened, chin jerking down even as he watched Ian from beneath his lashes. A slow whorl of color painted his cheeks, and Ian slowly began to smile.

Then Marethari touched his arm as the door swung closed behind Arianni, and Fenris was lost from view again. It didn’t matter; Ian knew he was there. He hadn’t given up on him yet. “There is more I must tell you that is not for her ears,” the Keeper said.

Ian turned to her, feeling lighter inside, and even more determined than before. “In Feynriel in danger?” he asked.

Standing next to Isabela, teeth worrying at her lower lip, Merrill made a soft noise. That was answer enough, but Marethari still nodded gravely. “Indeed. And the danger may not come from what you think.” Well, that didn’t sound promising. “Feynriel cannot become an abomination. The destruction he would cause is unimaginable. If you cannot save him from the demons, you must kill him yourself. A death in the Fade will make him what your Circle calls Tranquil. He will be no threat after.”

He stiffened, straightening to his full height, the crown of his head nearly brushing the low ceiling. “I can’t make him Tranquil,” he protested. “That is Feynriel’s greatest fear.”

“And yet there may be no other choice. If he is taken…”

But Ian was already shaking his head. “No. _No_. I won’t be the one to make that nightmare come true. I’ll find another way.” He was aware of the low creak of the door opening, but Ian was so horrified by what the Keeper was suggesting that he did not—could not—turn to look. “There’s _always_ another way.”

“And if you are wrong?”

“I’m not.”

Marethari sighed, shoulders rounding forward. She nodded. “I have no choice but to leave it in your hands. Now, gather a team and we will begin. Choose carefully, for all will face temptation.”

Isabela straightened from her indolent lean. “I _never_ give in to temptation,” she purred.

“You _always_ give in to temptation,” Ian pointed out.

“Oh, perhaps, but I won’t _this_ time.”

Merrill rocked up onto the balls of her feet, eyes locked on Ian. “Can I come?” she asked. “I’d love to see the ritual! And I promise I won’t be a bother!”

It was all happening very fast—but then, Ian figured, that was good. They needed to move quickly if they wanted to see this done. “All right,” he said. “Yes. The two of you will come with me. We’ll—”

“Rush headfirst into danger like _fools_ ,” Fenris said from the doorway, “and get yourselves killed doing it.”

Ian turned. Fenris was, standing in the rectangle of light, arms crossed over his chest and brows drawn together in the fiercest of frowns. He was restlessly shifting from foot to foot, as if he anticipated the need to launch into battle at any moment. Maybe he thought to fight _Ian_.

It wouldn’t be the first time they’d clashed. Ian was certain, if Fenris stuck around through the next week, month, season, year, it wouldn’t be the last.

“Fenris,” he said, because that was easier than facing the argument he knew was coming.

Fenris just bared his teeth, both hands lifting in a warding gesture. “I know nothing I say will deter you,” he snapped. “You are _determined_ to throw your life away for anyone who so much as asks.”

_You no longer have any claim on my life_ , Ian thought, though he would never— _never_ —say anything so hurtful. He would rather carve out his own tongue than use it as a weapon against the people he loved. _You made sure of that when you held my heart in your hands and threw it aside._

He looked away, feeling the flush creeping up his neck. Isabela was beginning to still, something dark and dangerous in her eyes. He caught her gaze, giving a faint shake of his head; she frowned at him, then sighed and collapsed back against the wall.

_Fine_ , she seemed to say with a casual flick of her fingers. _Let him trample over you. Again. (You big idiot_.)

It was possible the last bit was open to interpretation. But then, Ian Hawke was fairly sure _you big idiot_ could be tacked on to anything his friends ever thought or said about him, so… He cleared his throat. “You don’t need to join us,” he said.

“And I will not,” Fenris agreed stiffly, though Ian swore there was a breath of hesitation there. As if a part of Fenris _wanted_ to agree to come. Or was he just seeing what he wanted to see?

Ian shook away the creeping tendrils of hope. “But perhaps I could convince you to…watch over us?” he said instead. “While we’re in the Fade, our bodies will be helpless. You could make sure nothing happened.”

“Or draw little dicks all over our faces,” Isabela added, useful as ever. “Whichever struck your fancy.”

Fenris shot Isabela a quick look, but his gaze returned to Ian—looking up beneath his lashes almost shyly, shifting back and forth, back and forth, as if he weren’t completely comfortable in his own skin. “I…would be willing,” he began slowly, “to watch over you. If you are determined to complete this fool’s errand.”

“Oh _good_ ,” Merrill said, clasping her hands together with a bright smile. “Now that that is settled, perhaps we could begin? It doesn’t seem right to leave poor Feynriel waiting, does it?”

Fenris’s brows lowered. Ian cleared his throat, nearly choking on all the things he wanted to say; couldn’t. Merrill simply looked between them with a crooked smile, as sweet and guileless as a spring day.

“Come on, kitten,” Isabela laughed, catching Merrill’s elbow and tugging her deeper into the room where Marethari was preparing the ritual. “Let’s leave the boys to brood at each other a little longer. You wanted to see how it was done, didn’t you?”

“Brooding?” Merrill asked, blinking rapidly. Then she glanced over to where her former Keeper was pulling spell components from a satchel at her waist and suddenly brightened. “Oooh, the _spell_.”

“The _spell_ ,” Isabela agreed, winking once at Ian before sweeping Merrill away.

He was left in semi-privacy with Fenris while the three women gathered at the far side of the little shack. Fenris had crossed his arms at Merrill-and-Isabela’s exchange, a flush spread up his cheeks all the way to the tips of his ears. It was adorable.

Ian wasn’t allowed to find it adorable anymore.

This was getting to be a problem.

Ian cleared his throat again. “So, uh,” he began with his usual eloquence.

Fenris didn’t look up at him. “Do you wish me to join you?” he asked, voice pitched low. Sullen, almost, though there was a thread of vulnerability there that made Ian’s heart give a sudden lurch.

He tried to keep his reaction off his face, desperate not to make Fenris uncomfortable, but, _Maker_. The fact that Fenris could be spitting vitriol against the very idea of walking into the Fade to save the boy but then, a moment later, murmur willingness to follow at his side… It was too much. It made him feel too _damn_ much. “I, no,” he said, fumbling with the words. Especially when all he wanted was to chant _yes yes yes yes yes_. “Thank you. But it’s okay. We’ll be all right. I know you don’t really…”

Ian trailed off helplessly, awkwardly. He had no idea how to finish that. “You don’t owe me that,” he finally settled on.

Fenris jerked up his chin, green eyes flashing. “ _Don’t I?_ ” he demanded. But before Ian could demur, he added, “You have done a great deal for me, Hawke. I am not unaware of what you have sacrificed. I am not unaware of…” He clenched his jaw, lashes flickering as he looked up, then quickly away. “I am not unaware. I would do this for you if you required it.”

“And I would never require something like this of you,” Ian countered quietly. “Whatever else may have, ah, happened between us, you’re my _friend_ , Fenris. I’d never ask a friend to go where he did not want to.”

There was a short, tense silence, the only sound between them the unsteady in and out of their breaths. The air felt electric, fraught—charged as if by magic. Ian half expected to see the faint blue glow of Fenris’s markings, but they remained safely dormant as Fenris watched him with huge green eyes.

Then, slowly, he nodded—just once—and turned away.

Ian let out an unsteady breath, turning toward where the three women were finishing up the spell. He felt…he had no words for what he felt. Wrung out and gutted and anxious and melancholy. Glad Fenris would remain to watch over them and grateful he had offered to come despite his reservations, but trembling on the edge of collapse at the sheer height of the walls they’d managed to erect between them.

Weeks ago, Fenris had come to him and spoke of hate and hope. He’d pushed Ian back against a wall and caught his mouth in a hungry kiss. He’d chased his tongue and pushed aside his clothes and rutted hard and aching against him. Ian had fallen back amongst a pile of pillows with Fenris in his arms and had been happier than he’d felt in _years_.

And now…this.

Maker, but _this_ hurt.

_Well, good thing I have a mission to focus on,_ he told himself, firming his jaw as he crossed the room. Merrill was giving him one of her sad-eyed, wobbly looks and Isabela sighed, so he must have been doing a piss-poor job of keeping his emotions off his face, but at least Keeper Marethari seemed willing enough to focus on business.

“Are you ready, child?” she asked, rising easily from her crouch. She held a cracked wooden bowl between her palms, some kind of glistening powder gathered inside. It looked like crumbled limestone mixed with bits of dawnstone and serpentstone. Pretty. (Not that he was going to say that out loud.) “Once we begin, there is no way out but through.”

“Because that is not at all ominous,” Ian decided, glancing at his two companions. He could feel Fenris hovering somewhere behind him—a silent, disapproving presence. “Well. So. I guess bottom’s up then?” He reached for the bowl.

Marethari held it out of his reach, brows arching. “You may find it best to lay down first,” she said mildly. “You must first sleep to enter the Fade.”

Ian blinked.

“Tiiiimber,” Isabela translated, crouching easily. She smirked up at him—neck craned because, yes, fine, she had a point there. Perhaps he was a touch too…awkwardly big…to take any chances.

Merrill giggled.

“Point taken,” Ian muttered, looking around the rather scant floor for enough space. Merrill was already draping herself on the low bed in one corner, and Isabela took up a remarkable amount of space for such a compact woman. In the end, Ian had a shuffle half out of the main room and lay down in the doorway, hyperaware of just how much _space_ he stole—and Fenris standing at his feet, watching him with knitted dark brows.

Ian wriggled to get more comfortable, then folded his hands over his chest. He tried to offer Fenris a reassuring smile, but it came out wobbly enough they _both_ had to look away. Because obviously things weren’t awkward enough between them. “All right,” he said once all three of them were settled. “We’re ready.”

Marethari nodded once, gravely, and moved first to Merrill. She dipped her fingers into the bowl and painted Merrill lips with a liberal dusting of glistening powder. Merrill cleared her throat, but she didn’t look away from her former Keeper, eyes locked together as she wet her lips.

Then came Isabela, then Hawke. Ian lay patiently still as the old woman brushed his mouth with a single fingertip. Instantly, his lips began to tingle; he flicked out his tongue and tasted something coppery, sharp, a little bitter…and, strangely, _cold_.

“Huh,” Ian said. “It kind of tastes like…” He barely cut himself off in time, gaze jerking to meet Fenris’s.

_It kind of tastes like you_ , he’d almost said, and _wow_ , okay, that would have been ten kinds of awkward. He’d be praying not to wake up after something like _that_.

“Uh, salt,” he finally settled on.

A few feet away, legs crossed at the ankles and fingers drumming against her stomach, Isabela laughed. Because obviously she was the worst friend ever and _Varric_ should have been here in her stead.

“Hawke.” Ian glanced back toward Fenris, blinking at the way the ceiling seemed to twist and bend above him. The world swam in dizzying undulations; as he stared up at Fenris’s face, darkness began to swallow up the corners of his vision. “ _Hawke_.”

“Yes,” he said, but his voice sounded strangely slurred. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Fenris, I’m—listening.”

Fenris frowned. His face was the only thing Ian saw—the only thing worth seeing—scowling and beautiful and so very, very worried. “Be careful.”

_I will_ , Ian wanted to say, but his tongue no longer seemed to want to cooperate. Or maybe, _I’ll come back to you_. Or maybe, _I wish you knew how to care about me when I wasn’t wading into some new sort of danger._

But no. No, those wouldn’t be right, even if they were true. Instead, he just quirked his lips and gave an awkward, heavy-handed wave, his limbs moving like he was already deep, deep underwater. The whole world was falling into black, was tumbling down down down as if he were a child again, trapped at the bottom of a well and waiting for Bethy or Carver to toddle on tiny legs to tell Mum. As if… As if…

_Fenris_. A silver light in the distance, and warm hands touching his face. The taste of lyrium on his tongue.

  _I’ll come back,_ a part of Ian wanted to say; couldn’t. _I’ll always come back because, whether you want me to or not, I still love you._

He closed his eyes against the bright pain of that…and when he opened them again, he was in the Fade.


	4. Fenris

“Hawke,” he said, leaning over the big man’s supine body. He hated the way his own voice trembled at the word, fear making him feel off-balance. This was different from his usual low-level dread over Danarius returning for him—it was darker, deeper, centered solely on this ridiculous man who never failed to make his heart pound. “ _Hawke_.”

Hawke blinked up at him, gaze already unfocused. “Yes,” he said— _slurred_. The mage’s brew was already dragging him down. For a brief, crazed moment, Fenris considered demanding the cup so he could swallow the dregs and follow Hawke into the Fade. He didn’t like the thought of him going with only Merrill and Isabela to watch his back. He didn’t like…

“Fenris, I’m—listening,” Hawke mumbled, squinting as if that could somehow bring Fenris’s face into focus.

_Do not die_ , he thought, resisting the impulse to reach out and frame Hawke’s face. He wanted to touch him more than anything—wanted to _kiss_ him and taste the sharp bite of lyrium on his tongue, maybe follow him down that way—but he didn’t have the right. Venhedis. He’d seen to that himself, hadn’t he? He’d thrown aside any claim he had on this man out of fear and half-remembered pain. “Be careful,” he said instead, voice clipped. Harsher than he intended, as if he were _angry_ instead of nearly sick with dread.

But then, wasn’t that the story of his life? No matter how hard he tried to be gentle, delicate things, dreams, _people_ always seemed to shatter in his grip.

Fenris watched Hawke’s face, anxiously waiting for a reply—but his eyes were closing, lashes dark against his cheeks. His breaths were evening out.

He was gone.

Fenris stared down at the sleeping giant for what felt like a very long time, his own breath caught painfully in his chest, his teeth worrying at his lip. Had he made the right decision? Would Hawke be safe venturing so deep into the Fade? Man wasn’t meant to walk there this way. Would they even know what to do once they found the fool boy’s trail? Would they make it back unscathed by demons?

He should have gone. He should have gone. He should have _gone_.

A warm hand settled on his shoulder and Fenris tensed, tips of his gauntlets digging into his palms. He could feel the eight bright spots of pain, the slow beading of blood. “They will be safe,” the boy’s mother said, foolish in her blind optimism. “They will find my son, and they will return. Your friend…he works wonders.”

“He tests fate,” Fenris growled, jerking away as he rose to his feet. He refused to cast Hawke another look, stalking instead toward the opposite end of the tiny hovel. It was difficult to move past the sleeping forms of his friends; it was even more difficult to force himself to step outside, as if somehow he could do anything, anything at all to aid them where they had gone. “Eventually, even his luck runs out.”

_I have seen it,_ he thought, breathing in the dank alienage air. First with Bethany, then Leandra. Carver, well before their paths had ever crossed. _I have seen the way he lets it tear him to pieces_.

Fenris reached back to close the door behind him…then hesitated. There was no point in him staying. Marethari and Arianni had this well in hand, and even if there were an emergency of some sort, he would be less than useless. It wasn’t as if he could barge into Hawke’s dreams with a sword drawn and slay anything that dared threaten him.

And yet… It didn’t matter that he would be no good to them just sitting and _watching_ their unmoving forms. Irrational or not, he couldn’t bear the idea of shutting that little hovel door and severing even this small connection between him and Hawke. Just in case. His life had become an endless parade of wanting to be near the damned man _just in case_.

“Fool,” he muttered under his breath, arms wrapping tight around his middle. But Fenris stayed where he was, just past the threshold, door cracked open behind him and breath coming in slow, irregular gusts. _Be careful, Hawke_ , he thought, staring sightlessly at the Vhenadahl. _Be wary. Be smart. Be strong_.

And, whispered so quietly through his churning mind that he could easily ignore it: _Come back to me_.

He stood sentinel for what felt like a very long time, staring forward, straining for each sound that drifted through the hut. Marethari and Arianni occasionally spoke in low voices, and every now and again he could have sworn he heard a muffled cry—and yet minutes slipped into hours and nothing happened.

Until suddenly there was a heaving gasp and the clatter of chairs being shoved back from the table. Fenris turned immediately, stalking back into the house. He reached for the hilt of his sword even as his gaze moved unerringly to Hawke—who lay there, perfectly still, chest barely rising and falling with each breath.

Instead, _Isabela_ was sitting up with a heaving cough, one arm outflung as if to balance herself, the other pressed to her breast. She looked around with a wild light in her eyes, taking in the anxious ring of faces, then Merrill and Hawke still deep in the Fade. Her shoulders rounded forward and she let out an unsteady breath.

“Well,” Isabela said. “ _Balls_.”

Fenris let go of his sword hilt. “What happened?” he demanded, moving to crouch beside her. He snagged his ever-present wineskin and pressed it into her hands, not even complaining when she greedily tipped her head back to down as much as she could. He wasn’t in the mood to squabble over such petty things. “Why are the others not awake as well?”

Hawke. Why is _Hawke_ not awake?

She shook her head, dark hair falling across her cheeks—eyes downcast almost as if she were ashamed. That, more than anything, had his pulse spiking in alarm.

“Isabela,” Fenris began, voice going tight.

But Marethari beat him to it. “What did you see, child?” she demanded, crouching on Isabela’s other side. She held a glass of water, which Isabela promptly ignored in favor of taking another deep swig of the wineskin. “Did you find him?”

“Oh, we found him all right,” she said. Isabela sighed and let the skin sag as she wiped her mouth with the back of her palm. “And we found the desire demon trying to make a puppet out of him. Hawke shook the boy out of it,” she added when Arianni sucked in a frightened breath. “Feynriel made a run for it, unharmed. But I… Shit.”

Isabela leaned back on one hand, tilting her head to drain the wineskin dry. There was something unnerving about the way her dark eyes stayed fixed on the hovel ceiling, as if she didn’t want to risk looking at Hawke.

“What happened?” Marethari asked gently.

But Fenris knew his friend well enough to cut to the heart of the problem. “What did you _do_?” he demanded, a low growl in his voice.

Isabela closed her eyes; she shoved the (empty) skin back into his hands. “Well, there was a desire demon,” she said, as if that answered his question. Then, “I _really_ do love ships.”

He flung the skin down, hissing. “You _made a deal_ with it?” Fenris demanded, reaching blindly for the hilt of his sword again. Marethari caught his wrist before he could make contact, grip surprisingly strong—but not strong enough to best him. He twisted hard, wrenching away and baring his teeth at all three of them. Standing, he was between Hawke and Isabela, as if he could somehow defend him from her treachery.

She made a half-angry, half-gutted noise, hands gesturing wildly. “I wasn’t thinking!” she snapped. “I wouldn’t betray Hawke if I had been _thinking_. It was just… It was there, and it was offering me everything I wanted, and all I could think was…” Isabela let out a long, ragged sigh, one hand covering her eyes. “ _Balls_. All I could think was how easy life would be if I didn’t have to stay here and rely on other people to keep me alive.”

“So you turned on him,” Fenris said flatly. Unforgiving. She could have hurt Hawke; she could have killed him while _he_ stood outside, staring out at the alienage, utterly fucking useless. There was no forgiving _that_.

There was no forgiving either of them.

Isabela grit her teeth. “You would have done the same,” she snapped.

“ _Never_.” And Maker but he meant it. _Never never never_ would he turn his back on Ian Hawke like that. Never would he put him in that sort of danger. Never would he—

Would he—

What? Hurt him? Wound him to the core? He’d already done that, though, hadn’t he? He’d wormed his way into Ian’s life, into his bed, into his heart, and he’d ripped it to shreds with his own fear. And he hadn’t even needed a demon to do it.

Fenris’s shoulders slowly rounded forward. “ _Venhedis_ ,” he said, quietly defeated.

“Yeah,” Isabela muttered, one hand still clapped over her eyes as if she could somehow avoid looking at Hawke ever again. “I second that.”

“It is not over,” Marethari pointed out, wisely moving back to the table to sit across from Arianni, leaving Isabela and Fenris to watch over their friends. “Hawke and Merrill may yet find him.”

Fenris dropped into an easy crouch, elbows resting on his knees, hands dangling between his thighs. He didn’t even bother to hide his glower. “And if the boy is cavorting with more _demons_ ,” he said, spitting out the word, “perhaps this time they will have the sense to drive a blade into his heart.”

Isabela finally dropped her hand long enough to shoot him a dry look. “Yes,” she said, “because _Hawke_ and _Merrill_ are so very likely to go straight for the stabbing.”

He grunted assent. “We should have gotten Aveline,” he said.

“Big Girl would have dragged us all back by our short hairs by now,” Isabela agreed. Then she lay back down, one arm thrown over her eyes—the other reaching out so she could hook her fingers carefully in the hem of Hawke’s trousers, as if she couldn’t stand not having some small connection to her friend. Seeing that—seeing Isabela touching Hawke after she had so recently betrayed him—had Fenris’s stomach curling in tense, angry shapes, but he bit his tongue and let her be. She was ashamed; he didn’t need to make her admit just how much to know the truth. And _Maker_ but he understood that kind of sick self-loathing.

So he sat there, crouched at the ready, and waited again.

It didn’t take quite as long before the next sleeper sputtered awake. Fenris stood in one fluid motion when Merrill gasped out a half-scream. She startled up, reaching blindly for her staff—and only Isabela grabbing for her flailing ankle stilled her again. “Shh, shh, hey now,” Isabela soothed, turning and crawling up next to the elf. She caught one of Merrill’s fluttering hands and soothed back a dark fall of her hair. Just a few feet away from them, hands clasped loosely over his stomach, Hawke did not move. “Hey now, kitten, calm down before you claw someone, hmm?”

“I, oh, _oh!”_ Merrill sucked in a breath, then let it out in an unsteady whoosh. She slowly sat up, ignoring the half-risen Marethari and Arianni to focus on Hawke instead. “Oh. Oh dear,” she said. “I may have done a terrible thing.”

“I’m sure it isn’t so very bad,” Isabela soothed, even as Fenris snarled, “ _What did you do?”_

Merrill flinched. “I… I _may_ have given in to a demon,” she admitted. “It all happened so fast!” she added, jerking to her feet when Fenris made to lunge for her. “One moment I was with Hawke and we were talking Feynriel out of his dream, and the next the demon was looking at me and I… Oh, I…”

“You _killed_ him,” Fenris said, drawing his sword this time. It was huge in the tiny hovel, nearly brushing the ceiling as he raised it. Only Isabela (throwing herself bodily between them) and Marethari (dragging Merrill safely away) stopped him from cleaving her in two. “You betrayed him in the Fade and you left him to _die_.”

“Oh, but _no_ ,” Merrill protested, though the way her voice shook—the way her big eyes filled with tears—betrayed her own sinking fears. “No, no, I couldn’t have. I couldn’t _possibly_ have. Hawke is… Hawke is just so…”

It took everything he had to lower his sword when Isabela planted a hand against his breastplate, shoving him back. “Vulnerable,” he said with a twisting sneer, even as his own heart sank. “Hawke is _alone_ , and he is vulnerable now that the both of you have left him to die.”

“But,” Merrill said. Her voice quavered on the word, trembling hard even as those tears spilled down her cheeks. “But. But. _But_.”

“It’ll be all right, kitten,” Isabela soothed, though Fenris didn’t miss the haunted look she threw Hawke. Hawke, who still hadn’t moved. Hawke, who lay there deep in dreams, utterly alone. “Hawke is big and strong and _much_ better than either of us at resisting temptation. He’ll find Feynriel and he’ll drag him back into the waking world and all of us will laugh about this later over pints at the Hanged Man. You’ll see.”

Merrill turned her face away, one hand covering her mouth.

Fenris bristled. “Get out,” he said, quiet. Then, when they turned to look at him in varying degrees of watery surprise: “ _Get. Out_.” He took a menacing step forward, secretly gratified when all four—even Isabela—stepped back. He was hyperaware of Hawke taking slow, steady breaths behind him. That was the _only_ thing keeping his frantic worry leashed. “Get out and find Aveline. Find _Anders_.” His upper lip curled at the name, but there was no time for old grudges when Hawke needed help. They _should_ have dragged the mage here from the very beginning. If nothing else, that spirit tucked away inside his body may have helped steer Isabela and Merrill away from temptation. “I will stay and watch him.”

“I,” Arianni began, voice quavery, but she swallowed the rest of her words at whatever she saw in his expression. “Very well,” she said, bowing her head. The gentle compassion in her eyes was nearly his undoing.

He turned away before he could betray the full extent of his fear. Fenris set his sword aside and moved to kneel at Hawke’s head, hands firmly clasped over his knees as he listened to them talking quietly amongst themselves before finally— _finally_ —trooping out of the small hovel. He sat there, unmoving, unblinking, until he heard the soft _click_ of the latch.

And even then, he waited several long, painful minutes—listening to the rabbit-scared thrum of his pulse and the steady, even pull of Hawke’s breaths.

Finally certain he was completely alone, Fenris tugged off his gauntlets. He tossed them blindly aside, eyes sweeping down Hawke’s big frame. He looked so peaceful; that didn’t seem right, considering he was lost somewhere in the Fade even now, battling demons.

Alone.

Dear Maker, they’d left him alone. _He’d_ left Hawke alone. He’d been the very first betrayal.

“Hawke,” Fenris said, voice so low it was little more than a rumble of sound. He reached out and gently cupped the line of his jaw. Slid his fingers up to brush the hair at his temple. Stroked his thumb over his cheekbone. He was so, so sorely tempted to lean in and brush their lips together. Every day he saw Hawke—every day he followed six steps behind him, hyperaware of his presence and of the bit of red cloth tied about his own wrist—he was filled with impossible temptation. To…touch. Kiss. Take. Claim.

Allow himself to _have_ something good for once in his miserable life.

“Hawke,” he said again, leaning forward. Fenris pressed their foreheads together, closing his eyes against the emotion welling up inside his chest. One hand gripped the front of Hawke’s armor while the other stayed pressed against the line of his jaw, fingertips searching out the steady thrum of his pulse. Each breath the big man took lifted up against Fenris’s body—it was that, that proof of life, that was keeping him anchored even now.

It was that _hope_ that Hawke would somehow find a way through this mess the way he always, always seemed to.

They’d faced slavers and abominations and dragons and ogres and shades together. Surely, surely Hawke could manage to fight his way through something as simple as dreams.

“Hawke,” Fenris said for the third time, like a talisman—a charm to summon this impossible man back to him. Then, sighing against his lips, fingers curling in dark hair, he murmured: “ _Ian_. Wake up. Forget the boy and _wake up_.”

Hawke drew a breath. Let it out. Drew another. He slumbered on.

Slowly Fenris pulled back, wiping irritably at his face. His eyes stung with the beginning of tears, but he refused to let them fall. _You are being ridiculous_ he told himself even as his heart lurched painfully in his chest at the sight of that big body sprawled out and defenseless. Already lost in so many ways.

_Stop_.

“You will wake soon,” Fenris said, pushing back a dark cowlick that fell across Hawke’s brow. “You will drag that fool boy back from this brink, you will be the hero you always are, and you will save the day. Merrill and Isabela will make excuses or apologies, and—”

And what apology would _he_ give for allowing Hawke to do this alone?

“And I,” he added, voice dropping almost painfully low. “I will say nothing. But you will read everything I _want_ to say in me anyway, in that way you do. Hawke,” Fenris said, one hand pressed firmly over the steady beat of Hawke’s heart. “Wake up and know all the things I want to say to you.”

He drew a breath. Let it out slowly. Closed his eyes.

“ _Please_.”

There was a scuffing noise and the sound of the latch being lifted. Fenris smoothly sat back on his heels, letting go of Hawke. He schooled his features into a scowl as he glanced over, brows dragging together at the hot breeze that blew a flustered-looking Anders into the hovel. Fenris could see Merrill hovering just past the mage’s shoulder, but she didn’t try to come in; the door banged shut behind him.

“How long has he been under?” Anders demanded, crossing the floor to kneel at Hawke’s side, across from Fenris. His hair was tied back sloppily and his robes were rumpled, as if he’d been pulled from sleep. Or, perhaps, the end of writing bender, the hours bleeding into nothingness around him.

Anders looked up at Fenris’s silence, eyes red-shot but reassuringly clear. His hands didn’t shake when they moved over Hawke. “I can’t read your mind,” he snapped. “So you’re going to have to bring yourself to talk to me if you want to do Hawke any good.”

“A few hours,” Fenris said. He could see the surprise on the mage’s face when he didn’t snap back—fine. Let him have his petty shock. Fenris’s stomach was too tied in knots to fight against the one person who could actually do something to help the man he—

He—

“The three of them took the lyrium together, but Merrill and Isabela both fell to _demons_.”

Anders hissed out a breath. “Someone should have called for me,” he said. “He should never have done this without me.”

“He should never have done this at _all_ ,” Fenris countered.

He half expected Anders to snap at him, but he just looked up to meet his eyes—to watch his face over the body of the man Fenris fought so hard not to love—and gave the briefest of nods. “Be that as it may,” Anders said, “I’ll do what I can to help him now. Most likely, he’ll fight his way out of this on his own, but…it doesn’t hurt to have friends at your back.”

Wasn’t that the main thing meeting Hawke had taught _him_? That life was easier if there was someone you liked, someone you _trusted_ , watching your back? How many times had Hawke had _his_ back over these last few years?

Countless. _Countless_.

“Yes,” Fenris murmured, reaching out to subtly hook his fingers in the edge of Hawke’s armor, holding on as if he could anchor him somehow to earth. And then, meeting Anders’ eyes, pleading without words ( _save him, save him, save him_ ) he added: “Do what you must.”


	5. Fenris

Ian didn’t wake that first hour.

( _Anders leaning over him, blue fire crackling along the jagged lines across his skin, magic a palpable presence. Looking up at last, eyes fading back to dull brown and brows drawn together so tight Fenris didn’t even have to hear his gutted, “I couldn’t even sense him.”)_

Ian didn’t wake that first day.

_(Varric overseeing them with anxious efficiency as Ian was moved carefully from the alienage up into his Hightown mansion in the dead of night. “He’ll want to be home. When he wakes. He’ll want to be near… Shit.”)_

Ian didn’t wake that first week.

_(Fenris curled in a miserable ball in one of the many chairs ringing Ian’s big bed, chin resting on his knee. Anders behind him, pacing. “He has to be in the Fade somewhere. We’ll find him. We have to find him.”)_

Ian didn’t wake that first month.

_(The mansion silent around them. Cobwebs growing in corners. The steady rise and fall of Ian’s big chest the only thing keeping Fenris from shattering.)_

Six weeks from the day when Ian Hawke entered the Fade to save a boy marked for death, Fenris finally snapped. He’d spent nearly every moment by Hawke’s side, pacing a shallow groove across his carpet each time Anders came to check the unconscious man again. Watching his sleeping face for any sign of awareness, of return. Staring sightlessly into the fire as the hours ticked by. Moodily drinking and waiting and hoping and, finally, despairing when nothing— _nothing_ —worked.

Hawke was gone. Somehow he’d slipped through the cracks of the Fade, and no matter how many times Anders searched for him, he came up empty.

“We should consider…” Aveline began one night. The whole gang had gathered in the Amell estate, standing vigil. So many of them had been trickling in and out of the mansion since Hawke’s collapse that it didn’t feel strange to see them, and yet at the same time it was so _odd_ to be so surrounded. It had been…

Had it been six weeks since he’d left Hawke’s side? Since he’d seen so many people at once? _Venhedis_.

“We should _consider_ ,” Aveline tried again, voice catching, “whether we’ve exhausted all options and need to—”

Isabela straightened. “ _No_ ,” she said. “Oh no, big girl, you are _not_ calling an end to this.”

“We have to keep in mind what Hawke would want in this kind of situation,” Aveline barreled on. “And he would not want to be kept lingering like this, trapped in the Fade.”

“ _No._ ”

“Rivaini,” Varric murmured, reaching out for her, but Isabela was on her feet, bristling down at Aveline. They were on opposite sides of Hawke’s bed, his still body framed by the way they faced off: Isabela trembling with palpable fury, Aveline calmly implacable as always.

Fenris looked between them, stomach twisted into complicated shapes. He wished… He wished they’d both just shut up and leave. He wished they’d _all_ leave. Things were so much simpler when it was just him and Hawke, alone in the weighty silence.

Aveline slowly stood. “Speak your mind,” she said, staring down the other woman. “You know you want to.”

“Maker’s _furry ballsack_ ,” Isabela growled. “Do you even listen to yourself? You’re suggesting we kill Hawke.”

“No,” Aveline said. “I’m suggesting we accept that we have done everything within our power to bring him back, and nothing has worked. He’s trapped, and Maker alone knows what the demons are doing to his mind, and—”

Curled in her chair in the corner, knees drawn up and eyes huge with unshed tears, Merrill made a choked, _pained_ noise.

“—and I’m sorry for the both of you,” Aveline continued, features softening in real empathy. “I am. But we can’t prioritize your guilt over Hawke’s welfare.”

“His _welfare_ ,” Isabela sneered. She batted Varric away when he tried to snag her hand and reel her back to her seat, dark eyes glittering with fury. “As if you give two shits about his _welfare_. As if you even know him well enough to say whether he’d want a ‘merciful’ death or not.”

Now Aveline was bristling back. “I am his friend as much as you,” she snapped.

“If you were his _friend_ , you wouldn’t be so eager to stick a dagger in his chest.”

“No,” Aveline said, “if I were his _friend_ , I wouldn’t bloody well leave him behind for demons to claim!”

There was a heavy, awful silence after that, as if all the air had been sucked from the room. The world held its breath, teetering for a half-second that felt like an age—and then it all _smashed_ around them, Varric and Sebastian jumping to their feet, Merrill giving a choking sob, Trouble lifting his head from where he’d stood sentinel at the foot of Ian’s bed all this time and _howling_.

“ _You—_ ” Isabela began, then launched herself across the bed for Aveline.

Varric caught her around the waist at the last moment, even as Sebastian grabbed for Aveline’s sword arm, keeping her from drawing steel. The two women were practically hissing rage at each other, their pain broken and bloodied for everyone to see. Sitting by the door, Anders dropped his head into his hands and slumped in palpable defeat—and fuck, but that was all Fenris needed to know. It was clear whose side he took.

 _Death_.

 _Mercy_.

Were they already at this point of no return?

“We can’t deny him peace because you’re a selfish bitch!” Aveline thundered, barely allowing Sebastian to hold her back.

“If anyone’s getting a red smile across the throat, it’s going to be _you_!” Isabela hissed back, very nearly escaping Varric’s desperate grasp. There was a wealth of self-hatred in her words, a guilt that hung about her shoulders as she fought like a wild thing. Was Aveline right? Was Isabela so insistent that they give Hawke time (despite everything pointing to the fact that time would do nothing but allow his body to wither away as the demons consumed everything that had made Ian so very special) because she blamed herself for his loss?

Fenris didn’t have that excuse to fall back on; he wanted to keep Hawke alive even in this tenuous form because…

Well. Because he couldn’t bear to walk away. Not again.

He stood, ignoring the shouted words, the mournful howls, the sound of barely restrained tears as he slipped beneath Isabela’s thrashing limbs and crawled into the bed. The mattress dipped beneath his weight, sheets cool against his skin as he made his way up toward the head—so focused on Ian Hawke’s sleeping face that the rest of the world may as well not have existed.

He’d been keeping this last bit of distance over the past six weeks, wanting to touch him but too aware of what a hypocrite that made him. Ian Hawke had opened his heart, his soul, his home to Fenris. He’d blushed as he bumbled through mild flirtations, and cast not-so-subtle glances Fenris’s way, and _gasped_ when Fenris pushed up into his space, fingers tangling in his hair, teeth catching his lower lip, body and heart all too willing.

That night…

It still hurt to think about that night. How… _perfect_ it had felt; how good. Fenris hated to think that he had run not only because of the memories but also because of how _good_ Ian had been able to make him feel. Because how broken and pathetic was he if he couldn’t even accept such a wonderfully simple gift? Connection. Affection.

 _Love_.

 _Venhedis_ , how he loved this man. And how he had broken his heart.

 _I will not let them kill you_ , Fenris thought with a fierce kind of heartbreak, allowing himself for the first time in weeks to give into temptation and curl against Ian’s big side. He was warm, breathing steadily. _Alive_ still, lost somewhere within the shell of his body. If Fenris allowed himself to push reality away, he could almost imagine Ian was asleep beside him. That he had found a way to reel back time and return to that night when he’d walked away…and this time take another path. Wake from the memories and feel them fade and, instead of slipping from the bed, turn to press his face against Ian’s big shoulder and breathe in his scent and let that familiar warmth sooth him.

Find peace.

No.

 _Accept_ peace.

Accept whatever Ian had to give him. At least then he would have had months with Ian Hawke to sustain him now; memories that weren’t tainted by the stricken look in the other man’s eyes as Fenris threw away everything he had to offer.

Ignoring the shouting still going on around him, ignoring the bitter words being hurled like curses, ignoring the weight of loss hung like chains around their wrists and throats, Fenris curled on his side to face the sleeping mountain of the man he loved. He studied Ian’s face—boyish in sleep despite the bristle of beard that was growing in. Lips parted. Soft. As if waiting for a kiss that would never come. The blankets had been pulled up over his broad-muscled chest, but his arms rested over the counterpane. His chest rose and fell with every measured breath.

 _Sleeping_. He was just sleeping. They were just—sleeping. Together. The way they were supposed to be. No one else was here. Nothing else mattered. Just him, and Ian, and this thing between them that only a fool would deny.

Just…happiness.

Letting out a stuttery sigh, Fenris closed his eyes and slipped his hand into Ian’s. His palm was big and calloused, fingers warm. If he just crawled deep inside himself, Fenris could almost pretend—

Merrill’s sudden, sharp cry cut through the rising argument. “Hawke!” she said, scrambling to her feet. “ _Look!_ ”

Fenris snapped open his eyes and rose up onto an elbow, grip on Ian’s fingers tightening. At first, he didn’t see anything—but then he caught the flicker of Hawke’s lashes, the way his lips moved a fraction, the way he was _responding_ for the first time in forever, and his heart nearly _burst_ with hope.

“Hawke, buddy,” Varric said, pushing past Isabela to grab for Hawke’s other hand. “Can you hear us?”

“Thank the _Maker_ ,” Sebastian breathed, just as Isabela hissed, “ _I told you_ ,” to Aveline. Anders was stumbling closer, weaving his way through the gathering crowd, and as much as Fenris wanted to stay exactly where he was, he suddenly felt foolish and exposed.

He let go of Ian’s hand and slithered back across the mattress, intending to move to a corner and give the rest of them room.

“Oh,” Merrill said almost immediately, all the startled joy leeched from her voice. “He’s stopped.”

“ _Hawke_ ,” Varric tried again. “You can hear me, can’t you? Come on, try harder.”

The flare of hope was already dying, and Fenris kept his gaze down so no one could read the despair in his eyes as he made his retreat, heart pounding a staccato rhythm, limbs heavy. He slipped off the edge of the bed—

—and startled when Isabela grabbed his arm.

Fenris flicked his gaze over at her, brows faintly arched. There was something darkly mutinous in her expression, as if she wanted to draw her knives and _duel_ the Fade itself. Or maybe it was death she was so intent on fighting. Either way, it seemed as if anyone who got in her way was fair game, and the _glare_ she sent Fenris had his hackles raising despite himself.

“What?” he snapped.

Isabela just shoved him forward, back toward the bed. “Take his hand again,” she said.

He flushed, hating that his moment of weakness had been witnessed. “I don’t,” he began, trying to shake her off, but Isabela just gripped him _harder_ and pushed him forward, using her own body to herd him when he would have resisted.

“Bloody fucking void, Fenris, just _do_ it.”

He could have dug in his heels and refused; he was stronger than Isabela, even if she was faster. Or he could have lit up like a summer storm and passed like a ghost through her grasp. He could have lashed out and taken her down. He could have done any number of things.

But there was a palpable desperation in her dark eyes and no one was paying attention to either of them anyway—they were focused on Anders as he examined Hawke, every pair of eyes locked on his glowing blue hands as if they were somehow lending strength to the spell.

Fenris swallowed, meeting Isabela’s eyes. Then, slowly, he nodded.

She let go of his arm with a soft huff of breath. It didn’t matter what was driving her—whether she was letting her guilt spill out onto him, or whether she knew (which, of course she did) just how deeply Ian Hawke had loved him. Whatever it was, whatever she hoped to gain, Fenris accepted that he owed this man more than he could ever repay…and he pressed in, leaning over the lip of the mattress, and took Hawke’s hand in his.

Anders sucked in an immediate breath. “ _Hawke_ ,” he said, shock and delight coloring his words. His powers flared brighter as he leaned in, and all around Ian’s bedside, his friends were pushing in closer at the visible flicker of Hawke’s lashes.

Fenris jerked back, startled—heart lurching when Hawke went still again. It was so perfectly timed, it was eerie, as if Hawke (lost in dreams, trapped deep in the Fade, all but gone) had been responding at last. But…

It couldn’t…

It couldn’t possibly be _him_ , could it?

Hawke couldn’t _possibly_ be aware of _his touch_ , could he?

Isabela shoved him forward again. “Fenris,” she hissed.

He was already reaching out again, brushing his thumb across the back of Hawke’s hand—lighting up inside as if his markings had charged when Ian’s lashes flickered, lips parting on a heavy breath.

Fenris tightened his grip, heart pounding so fast he thought it might burst, and clambered back onto the bed. The mattress dipped beneath his weight and Hawke was breathing deeper, more steadily. He pressed against the big side and shifted his grip, lifting his free hand to cup the curve of Hawke’s bristly jaw. He felt a bare flash of embarrassment at so many of his friends witnessing this raw moment, but Fenris shoved the feeling away almost before it could surface. Who _cared_ what they bloody saw if it meant Ian Hawke would return to him?

“Hawke,” Fenris murmured, voice husky and low. He ignored the others as they spoke over each other, ignored Anders glowing bright as a sun at his side, ignored _everything_ but Ian’s sleeping face, his rising color, the way his eyes moved beneath his lids as if he were fighting to wake. Fenris stroked his thumb across Ian’s cheek and leaned in to press their foreheads together, _willing_ Ian to open his eyes. “Wake up. It is time for you to wake up.”

Hawke continued to breathe deeply; his lashes continued to flicker. And yet he did not open his eyes. But still… _still_ , now there was the hope that he might, and that was enough to quiet all the building rage and despair trapped inside Fenris.

 _You will wake,_ he thought, brushing his fingertips along Ian’s jaw, tasting each slow, even breath. _And when you do, I will make up for all the mistakes I have made. I will not throw this away again._

Finally, Fenris pulled back, listening to whatever the fool mage was saying for the first time in what felt like hours, decades, a lifetime.

“…back into the Fade,” Anders was explaining. He’d moved back from the bed and was pacing again, though this time with a strength of purpose that suggested he was pulling together a plan. “This is _proof_ that Hawke is still there; we just need to be able to find him.”

“I’m as eager to find Hawke as anyone,” Varric interjected, leaning against one of the bed’s four posters, arms crossed. “But let’s game this out. Say you go back into the Fade to look for him. How will _now_ be any different than the half-dozen other times you’ve gone looking? Do you really think he’s any closer?”

He held up his hands when Merrill made a low noise of protest and Isabela actually _snarled_. “I’m not saying we don’t try. I’m just asking, because Maker knows I don’t know Fade shit from nug-piss. And because I don’t know, I need you to enlighten me, Blondie: what makes you so sure that you’ll find him this time when you couldn’t find him before?”

Anders was actually grinning—a wild, ferocious thing that betrayed just how much Ian’s absence had weighed on him. How much it weighed on all of them, Fenris mentally corrected. Losing Ian Hawke was like losing the air in their lungs, the ground beneath their feet. He was elemental and _venhedis_ , so very, very necessary. “It’s different this time,” Anders said, turning back to look at Hawke. To look at Fenris. “Because I won’t be the one going.”

“I will,” Fenris said.

The words were rough, his throat tight from disuse. Every pair of eyes turned toward him, and he would have been insulted by the open shock on their faces if he hadn’t so thoroughly understood. His antithapy of mages, and magic, and anything to do with the Fade was well-known. And why shouldn’t it be—he hardly took any pains to _hide_ it. Fenris knew that volunteering to enter the Fade was like Aveline suggesting they murder her guardsmen in their sleep.

And yet it was the best—the only—way to bring Ian back. In the face of _that_ , there was no question. He would _happily_ enter the Fade. He would _happily_ drink lyrium and face demons and give himself over to magic; he would even _trust Anders_ if that meant hearing Hawke’s voice again. He would do anything for the man he’d loved and lost and was _determined_ to save.

Fenris straightened, chin lifted, and stared down his gaping friends, daring them to read all that on his face.

Varric whistled. “Well, shit,” he said—then gave a rusty laugh. “Hawke’s going to be pleased when he wakes up to find you’ve changed your tale, Broody.”

“Find him,” Isabela said, catching Fenris’s eyes. Her own were dark and glittering with a sheen of tears he knew she wouldn’t shed—that she probably hadn’t shed for all the time Hawke had been lost to them. “Find him and bring him back, and I’ll actually forgive you for breaking his heart in the first place.”

“Oh,” Merrill said, startled. “Are we _talking_ about that now?”

Fenris ignored her—and Aveline’s low shushing—as he inclined his head. “Yes,” he said, sealing the bargain.

Anders clasped his hands together briskly. “All right!” he said. “I’ll raid the supplies for more lyrium. Merrill, I’ll need you to help me again with the ritual. Will you gather all the, ah—”

She was already slipping toward the door. “Oh, yes, of course!” she called; Fenris could hear her _racing_ down the hall.

Sebastian made a low noise, and Aveline tipped her head toward his. “Let’s head downstairs,” she offered. “Help Orana get some food going. There’s no point waiting around uselessly, and we’ll have something to celebrate before the night’s through.”

“I really wish you wouldn’t jinx us like that,” Varric sighed, but he moved with them, half-herding them out of the room.

That left Fenris, and Trouble, and Isabela. Fenris watched as Isabela let out a breath, slowly deflating—then turn toward Ian’s trunk of treasured possessions. She crouched in front of it, tugging up the lid and riffling through with the ease of someone who had snooped through its contents more than once. “What are you doing?” he finally asked, one hand folding over Ian’s again. Now that he’d finally initiated contact, he was reluctant to go for more than a few seconds at a time _without_ touching Ian.

Isabela hummed in response, digging, digging—then made a pleased sound when she stood, a…diary in hand? He watched as she flipped through the pages toward the mid-to-end. “Bela,” Fenris began again.

“I’m adjusting the narrative,” she said, catching a few pages in one hand. She flicked her gaze to Ian—fondness and defiance there—and deliberately ripped the pages out of the book.

Fenris arched a brow, but she didn’t explain any further, instead tearing page after page free with visible pleasure. Once she was finished, Isabela tossed the journal back into the chest and closed it with a self-satisfied _click_ , a loose stack of pages in her hands. Even from this distance, Fenris could recognize Ian’s scrawling handwriting. “I’m going to go burn these,” Isabela said, cocking her head toward the door. She hesitated a moment, however, studying Fenris and Hawke, taking in everything: the way Fenris sat with his legs curled so his knee brushed Ian’s hip. The way his hand was curved inside Ian’s big grip. The flicker of Ian’s lashes as if he could _sense_ Fenris nearby and was straining to reach him.

She let out a long, slow breath, and when she blinked, Fenris swore he saw the glitter of tears on her lashes. “Don’t fuck this up again,” Isabela warned him—then turned and slipped from the room, leaving them alone.

He let out a heavy breath and looked down at Ian’s sleeping face. The big man took up so much of the bed it was almost laughable, yet Fenris fit so perfectly at his side. He remembered…curling against him, the flush of sex still on his skin, Ian’s arm going around his middle. The soft press of lips to his shoulder; a breath ruffling his hair. The big, overwhelming, wonderful expanse of all those muscles surrounding him, enveloping him, making him feel so very safe for the first time in years.

Maybe for the first time in his life.

Ian Hawke had saved him in so many ways, small and large. And now Fenris was preparing to enter the Fade of his own free will to save Ian in return; inside, he felt nothing but peace.

“I am coming for you, Hawke,” Fenris murmured, leaning close, one hand brushing back the dark tangle of Ian’s hair. It was in need of cutting. Tumbling into his eyes, he looked less like the hero of Kirkwall and more the earnest farmboy he used to be. If Fenris closed his eyes, he could almost imagine the blush and bashful smile. Could see the shy way Ian used to watch him. “I will find you. This is not over.”

He brushed his thumb across Ian’s temple oh-so very gently. Then, heart racing in his chest, Fenris leaned in the last bit of distance and sealed his words with the softest of kisses. Little more than a brush of lips against lips, a shared breath, a shiver of connection. A _promise_.

_This is not over._

He would bring Ian home if he had to face every demon in the Fade to do it.


	6. Fenris

“Just relax,” Anders said—unnecessarily, though Fenris allowed the mage his little reassurances. Surely they were as much for their breathless audience as for Fenris himself. “And don’t try to fight it. It’s easier if you just allow yourself to sink into sleep.”

Fenris obediently closed his eyes, one hand resting over his stomach, fingers of his other curled tight with Ian’s. He could feel the strong beat of Ian’s pulse where their wrists were pressed together; his own heart fell effortlessly into tempo.

“The Fade is going to be strange for you,” Anders was still talking, his tone measured, quiet, calm. Fenris couldn’t remember the last time the two of them had managed more than a few words without the baring of teeth. “Maybe stranger than for any other non-mage. Just…try to stay focused on Hawke, and don’t let your emotions overwhelm you.”

From somewhere far away came the tolling of a bell. The Chantry striking the hour? Or—

“That’s it,” Anders murmured. “Slowly. Easily. Don’t fight. Stay focused on Hawke.”

“I am—” Fenris began, but his lips felt numb, his tongue wooden. The words sounded…strange, echoing inside his head with a steady _bong bong bong_ ; that bell; had Kirkwall always had a tower bell? _Venhedis_ , he couldn’t remember. He _hated_ not remembering. He—

Words. Somewhere floating above him, distant as the wisps that haunted the swamps, and Fenris closed his hands into fists, grateful for the lingering sense of Ian’s presence, the warmth of his calloused palm against his own, the steady pulse of his heart like a—

Like—

_Oh_. Like a _bell_ , tolling through the darkness. All at once, Fenris relaxed back into the building dream, surrendering himself to the Fade. What just moments ago was frightening, baffling, now filled him with a steady source of strength. No matter how strange this unnatural world of dreams and magic became, somewhere back in the waking world—back in Kirkwall—he was laying at Ian’s side, fingers curled together. _Tethered_ to the only man who had ever truly mattered.

_It’s all going to be okay_ , he thought, words taking on Isabela’s inflection, echoing in his head as if she’d leaned in close to whisper against the shell of his ear. Then, just as the rushing wind began to grow, just as he slipped past the threshold into deep unconsciousness, Fenris felt a quick, soft brush between his brows: a kiss, for luck. _Go get ‘im, tiger_.

And then he was…somewhere else.

The sudden shift from dark to dazzling sunlight had Fenris hissing and throwing up a hand to shield his eyes. He could feel heat against his skin and a dry breeze rustling the surprisingly long ends of his hair.

Nearby, someone laughed.

“Sorry,” an unfamiliar male voice said, that warm laughter rumbling beneath his words. “Should have given you the heads up. I’ll put it away.”

Fenris lowered his hand, blinking away the dark motes swimming in front of his vision. He could no longer feel Ian’s grip in his, but he _could_ feel soft grass and sun-warmed earth beneath his feet. The weight of a sword strapped to his back. The subtle gnaw of hunger.

And…an uneasy sense of recognition as he looked up at the dark-haired, bearded man busy tucking away a small hand mirror into the folds of his robe—despite being utterly certain he had never seen the mage before in his life.

The man winked at him. “Don’t want to look too scruffy for a homecoming,” he said with easy friendliness that suggested he and Fenris had some sort of long history together. “Don’t want to look too put-together, either, or everyone’ll start thinking your _important mission into the Wilds_ is just an excuse to skiv off of farm work. This way,” he added, leading the way down a winding path past a large windmill. There was a waterfall to their right and an almost impossibly bucolic town spread gentle and peaceful in the vale below. Each blade of grass was so perfectly green that it almost didn’t look real.

_It is not real_ , Fenris reminded himself, reluctantly following the man down down down the winding path, skirting the town and heading toward the nearby farmlands. Picture-perfect villagers smiled as they passed, waving in greeting; the bearded man waved back, jovial. _None of this is real._

But it _felt_ real—more real than any dream Fenris remembered—and he clenched his fists at his sides as he tripped along behind the man, struggling not to demand answers, to push for explanations, to scream Ian’s name as if that would somehow call him forth.

_A demon’s dream can be a subtle place_ , Anders had warned as he was prepping the lyrium, expression drawn in tight worry. _It can also have all the grace of a drunken ogre; it all depends on what Hawke’s found himself ensnared in. Play along as best you can until you know that Hawke is himself enough to resurface. Pushing before he’s ready will just make him retreat._

Fenris glanced at the dark-bearded man as they headed toward a modest-looking house high on the crest of the tallest hill, perfectly framed by the sky. _Are you a demon?_ he wondered—and then jerked his head up at a shockingly familiar sound.

_Barking_ , each short exclamation whistling a little at the start—from broken ribs that hadn’t healed properly, Ian had once said. It seemed impossible to hear that racket here, but sure enough, the cottage door flung open and Trouble came careening out…tongue lolling, nub of a tail wagging, ears pricked as high and happy as Fenris had ever seen them.

Then man laughed and tossed Fenris his staff, dropping to one knee and holding out his arms. Fenris watched, bemused, as Ian’s faithful dog went _barreling_ into the man’s arms, knocking him back onto his rump with whistling barks and enthusiastic licks across sun-browned cheeks.

“Hey, hey,” the man laughed, turning his face this way and that as if he could somehow avoid the sloppy welcome. He looped his arms around Trouble’s neck, fingers digging into the ruff. “Hey now, don’t muss me up too much; I worked hard to achieve this level of handsome.”

“Let me guess,” a drolly amused voice said, and Fenris jerked back; a woman had materialized out of thin air, long grey-and-brown braid flung over one shoulder, arms crossed beneath an ample bosom. “You stopped a mile out of town to preen.”

“Well,” he said with a crooked smile, practically beaming happiness up at the oddly familiar woman. “I have to look good for the most beautiful lady in Thedas, don’t I?”

She laughed. “Your charm won’t make me forget you’re a whole week late,” she said, offering the man—her husband?—a hand up. “Or that you’ve forgotten to introduce your guest.”

“ _Where_ are my manners? But first,” the man said, wrapping an arm around her waist the moment he gained his feet. He swung her into a showy kiss, ignoring her laughing sputters. Trouble, tongue lolling, bounded around their feet.

Finally, she pushed him away, flushed and giggling like a schoolgirl, neat hair hopelessly mused. “Your _guest_ ,” she said pointedly, casting a glance toward where Fenris stood awkwardly waiting—wondering whether he should start scouring the Fade or trust that Ian would be drawn to him. “We don’t want him thinking all of us are utter barbarians.”

“ _Tch_ ,” the man said happily, but he settled down, one arm still looped arm around her waist. “Very well. Fenris, this is my wife, Leandra. Leandra, this is Fenris—an escaped slave from Tevinter, if you can believe it. He stumbled across me in the Wilds just as I was about to be skewered by a Hurlock; a bit of good timing and fancy swordswork dispatched the whole nest of darkspawn, and I convinced him to come back to Redcliff with me to meet the family. And speaking of family,” the man… _Malcolm Hawke_ , Fenris realized with dawning shock…said, turning to glance up at the little house on the hill.

Two dark-haired children—a boy and a girl—were racing down to meet them, flying just as fast as their legs would take them, and just behind them…shadowed for a moment by the doorframe…smaller than Fenris remembered… _younger_ , somewhere in his teens and looking awkwardly put together as if he hadn’t grown into his full potential yet…

“Bethany,” Malcolm said, pointing to the little girl running toward them, pigtails flying behind her, “Carver,” he said, pointing to her twin, red-faced as he fought to outpace his sister, “and, of course, Ian.”

_Ian_.

Ian Hawke stepped out into the sunlight, one hand lifting to shadow his eyes. Everything inside Fenris clenched tight in response, the lingering heartache of the last few weeks crystalizing in his chest. Maker, _Maker_ , it was Ian—looking at him across the wide Redcliffe fields with a faint frown puckering his younger-than-normal face, as if Fenris were some long-forgotten memory trying to push its way to the surface.

As if he felt the tug between them, lost here in the Fade.

“Daddy!” Bethany-and-Carver cried, throwing themselves at their father. Malcolm laughingly caught one in each arm, swinging them up and around as Trouble barked and danced at their feet. Leandra was watching it all with fond amusement, and Ian was moving to join them—still casting Fenris curious glances, still a little wary.

Leandra caught Fenris’s attention. “I want to thank you,” she said, voice low, as Ian joined the little group. “I didn’t want Malcolm to go into the Wilds—you hear such terrible things about that place—but he felt he had to, and once that man gets an idea in his head… Well,” Leandra finished with a wry smile. She reached out to take Fenris’s hands, not seeming to notice the lines of lyrium, or the way he instinctively tensed in response. Her fingers were cold, vaguely insubstantial. _Not real_ , a part of him whispered, and he cut his gaze back to teenaged Ian again, wondering if _he_ was just a Fade dream too. Just some demon playing tricks on Fenris. “ _Thank you_ for bringing him back to us.”

_I did not_ , he wanted to say; couldn’t. The words had dried on his tongue, but venhedis, they were true. He remembered this day, from all that Ian had told him. The summer sun was high, the rolling hills of Redcliffe were vibrant, and on this day, a stranger had come to the little Hawke home to tell them Malcolm had been found dead in the Wilds, torn to pieces by darkspawn.

What did it mean that here, now, this was no longer true?

“Son,” Malcolm was saying. He’d dropped young Bethany and Carver to their feet and was reaching out for Ian now, wide smile breaking across a handsome face. It was uncanny how Ian took after his father; it was even stranger to see him now, here, like this, all awkward angles on the edge of manhood. “Take care of everything while I was gone?”

Father pulled son into an embrace, and Fenris watched with unsettled interest as Malcolm’s not-quite-insubstantial fingers passed slightly _through_ the flesh of Ian’s shoulders. They hadn’t done that with Leandra or the twins; did that mean something? Was that proof that this _was_ Ian?

Ian cast Fenris a quick, shy glance from beneath his lashes even as he embraced his father. “Um, yeah,” he said, voice cracking down the middle on the second word. Color rose up his cheeks and stained his ears. “Tried to, at least. Who’s…?”

“Fenris,” Malcolm said, pulling back and gesturing Fenris forward. “He knows his way around a greatsword; maybe he can teach you a thing or two.”

_He_ felt awkward as a newborn lamb too as he stepped closer to Malcolm and Ian, meeting the boy’s eyes. It felt…strange to see him like this. Transgressive, somehow, and he wondered what Malcolm and Leandra would think if they knew he’d deflowered their young son at some point in the future, in the world beyond the Fade? They had been lovers, but they weren’t yet. Not for many years.

This was all too much.

“Fenris,” Ian said, blush deepening—and oh, _oh_ , Fenris knew that look. Ian had worn it often enough since their first meeting, ears going red as he stole quick looks and awkward asides. The boy wasn’t wary of him; he was _attracted_.

Not that Fenris knew what to do with that, either. He was in over his head. The best he could do was clear his throat and offer his hand, hoping that inspiration would strike somewhere along the way. How did you tell someone they were trapped in a dream? “Hawke,” he said, voice like sandpaper—and the moment their palms met, something hot and _real_ and indescribable shot through him, unspooling like lava in his veins. It filled his head with ringing as his gaze focused on Ian’s and his lips parted on a silent breath.

Ian’s grip tightened, eyes flaring wide in something almost like recognition—and then, Trouble’s barks a faraway warning, Ian Hawke disappeared in a flash of light.

And the farm, the Hawkes, the whole bloody _world_ , disappeared with him.

“Hawke!” Fenris cried, but there was nothing he could do. He was surrounded by a blur of lights, rocky ground jagged as it wound up up up toward a queasy-bright sky. He turned, hackles raised, sensing eyes on him, but there was no one to be seen. There was _nothing_. Just…madness, all around, as if Thedas had been crumbled into a handful of rocks and tossed into the air. In the distance, looming large over the broken spire Fenris found himself on, was a massive _black_ city.

_The_ black city.

Maker, he should have known he’d be in over his head here.

“Hawke,” he said again, this time as a talisman. He curled his hands (suddenly back in their spiky gauntlets, as if his mind were instinctively responding to his need to be protected) into tight fists, trying to ignore the unsettling sight. Trying to ignore everything except the path forward, winding its way up the side of the broken cliff. He had no real sense of direction, no guarantee that any one path would lead to Ian, but he had found him once, hadn’t he? He would find him again.

Even if he spent the rest of his life trapped in this dream, wandering the Fade in search of the man he’d loved and lost.

Jaw grit, heart racing, skin prickling with unease, Fenris made his way up the path. The rock was more solid under his feet than it looked, steady where he would have expected tough going. He caught sight of something out of the corner of his eye—a flicker of greenish-blue light—but when he turned his head, there was nothing to be seen.

And yet as he focused on the path ahead, trudging up, that same light played at the corners of his awareness…following him, just out of sight. More than that, he swore he heard, well—

Voices. Whispering in the shadows. Hissing his name.

_Do not_ , Fenris thought, fighting the urge to draw his sword and swing blindly. He had to keep tight control of his emotions here, lest he draw demons. He was a stranger in this strange world, utterly adrift, helpless, but he couldn’t let the stark terror that sparked in his breast overwhelm him or he truly would never escape—he’d be lost here forever with Ian, until their bodies withered away and there was nothing left but desperate memory. That’s how it worked here, didn’t it? That’s how—

He took a step toward what _looked_ like solid stone, only to have it skitter out from beneath him, sliding slick and fast. Fenris cursed as he staggered down to one knee, hand outcast to grab on to something—aware of a dangerously steep drop but a few feet away. Small rocks scattered down the slope, pinging stone over stone like a hush of distant rain…and somewhere nearby, just around the bend, Fenris swore he heard someone _whistling_.

Fenris looked up with a frown as the rocky slope shimmered, then seemed to melt before him. Between one blink and the next, it was gone—replaced by a muddy hillside, a blinding sheet of rain, and a barn rising like a monolith in the near distance. The big double doors were thrown open, revealing the welcoming light of a lantern and piles of fresh hay, perfectly stacked with a precision reality could never quite match. A mabari lay curled in one corner, head on its paws, and passing by the light of the lantern—shirtless and gorgeously muscular and still younger than Fenris remembered him, though _close_ , so close, somewhere in his early twenties and so familiar he made his gut ache in response—was…

“Hawke,” Fenris breathed. Sprawled in the cold mud, drenched in rain, he watched with a fluttering pulse as Ian set aside his pitchfork and wiped his brow, perfectly defined, sun-bronzed muscles rippling with the movement.

It made his mouth go dry, even as he felt reflexive shame at the instinctual burst of attraction. That had been his hell since the night he’d walked away from everything Ian Hawke had offered him: lust and love and fear and self-hatred, wrapped in complicated Gordian knots. He wanted, he wanted so much, and yet he knew deep in his bones that he didn’t deserve everything that was within his grasp.

Crouched in the mud, watching the man he loved, Fenris couldn’t help but wonder: if he managed to save Ian from the Fade, would he finally feel like he deserved the utter _joy_ this man could bring him? Void take him, he didn’t know. He couldn’t know. All he knew _now_ was that he was back in a simple white shirt and homespun trousers—plastered to his body, soaked through with rain. It was a downpour, each drop hitting with unexpected power, cold enough to leave him shivering.

Lantern-light gilded Ian’s muscles as they worked, rippling with each movement. He whistled to himself—off-key and charming—as he jabbed the pitchfork into hay and brought a teetering mound of it over the edge of the nearest stall. A goat bleated, and somewhere in the distance, thunder rumbled.

_This isn’t real_ , he told himself, even as he pushed himself up to his knees. Watching Ian—whole and healthy and glowing with vitality, gorgeous in a way that made his teeth ache—an insidious part of Fenris whispered: _but it could be_.

He must have made a noise at that, or perhaps Ian caught movement out of the corner of his eye, because within one breath and the next he was turning his head to look at him. Fenris froze in a half-crouch, not yet fully risen. The rain left his hair plastered to his forehead, streaming into his eyes as he stared at Ian with a thundering pulse, waiting, wondering what he would do.

Ian just smiled.

“What are you doing?” he called, jabbing the pitchfork into the hay bale and leaving it there. He moved to the mouth of the barn, absently wiping his (big, rough) hands on his trousers. Fenris watched with helpless longing, cataloguing all the familiar planes and angles of this man he couldn’t live without. The ridiculously broad shoulders; the massive height; the kindness in his eyes and the way color bloomed across his cheeks at the slightest provocation.

His gentle giant, warmth and recognition sparking deep, even though in reality, at this point in Ian’s life, they had not yet met.

“Fenris,” Ian said, shaking his head, and Fenris realized he’d just been crouching there, soaking through, staring. _Longing_.

“I,” he began, but he had no words. He was completely at sea. What fantasy had Ian’s mind stitched around him now? How did Fenris fit in, and would it all go slipping through his fingers again if he held on too tight? He couldn’t risk that. He had to keep Ian with him. “I do not know.”

Ian’s grin softened, expression gentling further—warm enough to break his heart. Maker, how long had it been since Ian had _looked_ at him like this? Affection and joy and not a hint of the hurt that always thread between them now. Not a hint that Fenris had ruined the one good thing in his life. “You’ll catch your death,” Ian said, stepping out into the rain. It instantly drenched him through, dark trousers clinging to the powerful line of his thighs, hair flattening against his skull, broad pecs slick and maddeningly perfect and—

Fenris watched, frozen, as Ian crossed the muddy yard toward him, offering a hand. It wasn’t until he was reaching back instinctively—hungry for the touch of his skin—that he realized he shouldn’t. Touch had ended the last dream; would it whisk Ian away from him again?

He jerked back his hand, but it was too late. Ian’s fingers were already closing around his, calloused palm sliding across his skin, and Fenris was being gently tugged up to his feet…and straight into Ian’s arms.

It happened so smoothly, so effortlessly, it was like being in a dream. Fenris fell against Ian’s broad chest as softly as a feather, free hand flattened just over the steady thrum of Ian’s heart. He looked up (up, up), breath catching in his throat, _soaking_ in the heat cast from the much bigger body.

Ian was looking down at him, grinning, expression somewhere between shy and hopeful. His free arm slid (slowly) around Fenris’s hips, dragging him closer.

“Hawke,” Fenris managed, the word coming out strangled.

“I thought,” Ian said, lashes flicking as his gaze dropped to Fenris’s mouth, then back up to meet his eyes, “that we agreed you could call me by name when the twins weren’t around to make us miserable?”

Thunder rumbled, and all around there was the soft _shush shush_ of rain. Fenris sucked in a breath, letting his muscles relax as he melted into Ian’s grip. The barn light cast a halo over his shoulders, and somewhere down the hill a light came on in the small Hawke cottage. Figures crossed the window as shadows: mother and father, siblings. All alive in this fantasy world of Ian’s making.

And _he_ had a place in it. _He_ was in Ian’s arms, heart fluttering madly in his chest, fighting to remember that…that this was all a dream. That it wasn’t _real_. That he was here to convince Ian to wake.

“ _Ian_ ,” Fenris began, struggling to find the words he needed to snap him out of this, but they dried on his tongue when Ian reached up to drag a knuckle across the sharp line of his jaw, tilting his face up in helpless acceptance.

A dimple flashed at the corner of Ian’s mouth. “That’s better,” he said—and stole Fenris’s words, his thoughts, his very _will_ when he leaned down and caught his mouth in a slow, meltingly sweet kiss.

The whole world seemed to fall away in an instant. The barn, the rolling hills of Ferelden, the summer storm: nothing, _nothing_ mattered but the surge of pure _joy_ deep in his chest, the shockwaves of memory and desire (it had been so long, _so long_ since they’d last kissed), the helpless sound trapped deep in his chest and the sinking realization that he wasn’t strong enough to deny this. Not now. Not ever again.

If this was the trap the Fade had concocted for them, Fenris realized as he melted eagerly into the kiss, lips parting for the first hot swipe of Ian’s tongue, then they were utterly doomed. Because he had walked away from this man before; how, _how_ could he be expected to do it again?

Fenris sank his fingers into Ian’s hair, surging up against the muscular wall of his body, and surrendered to the desperate heat of their kiss.


End file.
